Looking Forward To The Future
by mrmattimation
Summary: Somewhere in another timeline, one small change in the chain of events that shapes the Underground makes a big difference. The human accidentally lets details of their past slip as Alphys walks them through the CORE's final hallway. Well, one of their pasts, anyway. Time travel's confusing.
1. Chapter 1: One Small Change

_For every action, there is a reaction. It is theorized that each action and reaction creates a new timeline, dimension, universe, whatever you want to call it. Some of these new dimensions contain very minor changes. Thus, an infinite number of inconsequentially different timelines exist. However, an equally infinite number of timelines containing huge differences exist. Yet another equally infinite number of timelines were exactly the same as their neighbors since the beginning of time, until one seemingly small change occurred; "the beginning of time" being respective to the timeline in question, that is._

 _The human we know as Frisk exists in many different timelines. The name applies to boys, girls, those in between, adults, kids, babies, monsters, humans… The possibilities are endless._

 _The Frisk of Dimension MAC-174 is very similar to one of her other counterparts. One small change, however, can make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things._

The human child's footsteps echoed as she traversed the final corridor of the CORE, towards the elevator which would allow her to finally leave Hotland and enter the king's castle, whereupon she would cross the barrier and leave the Underground. Somehow. Frisk hadn't exactly worked out all of the details yet, but just kind of winging it had worked wonders for her thus far, so she were sure she would find a way. She had to. The thought of approaching the king, and asking him nicely to just let her through, as Papyrus suggested at the beginning of her journey, filled her with DETERMINATION.

Really, her biggest concern was Sans. At the end of her last run, Sans had… Not been helpful. What should have been her easiest challenge wound up being the challenge that cost her a full RESET. It's not like Frisk didn't feel BAD about the things she did. But at the time, she felt like she had to do it. The first one was an accident. She didn't know her own strength, and Toriel paid for it… Dearly.

Then there was that nagging voice in the back of her head. A voice that sounded like her own, yet somehow much, much colder. And older, as old as a child's voice could sound. It told her that, so long as Frisk did what the voice said, she would be fine. Frisk was told that Papyrus would betray her, so, she did what she had to do. After all, in this world, it's kill or be killed, right? After that, things got easier. It became easier to kill once she wasn't as emotionally attached.

After the RESET—as Frisk discovered, her newfound time traveling ability required her to adhere to strict rules such as where and when he could and couldn't travel to—Frisk found that her actions had no consequences. _So_ , she thought, _let's just ignore that little voice in my head from now on._ After all, what was the worst that could happen? If things went wrong, she could just RESET again.

Once she learned that, yes, Toriel could be saved, no, Papyrus was not a threat to her, and no, Monster Kid was not free EXP, Frisk honestly felt a little stupid. She let the voice in her head control her. She hated herself for it.

Well, more so than she already did. But Frisk didn't like to think about what led her to Mt. Ebott in the first place.

So, yes, she was slightly apprehensive at meeting Sans in the Judgement Hall again. She remembered all too well the feeling of bone tearing flesh, blaster searing muscle. And that was when she were LV 19. As Frisk had not killed anybody this time, she never gained any EXP, she never gained LOVE, and her HP remained at twenty, where it was at the start of her adventure. She, truthfully, had NO idea how she were going to deal with Sans. But she'd find a way. She'd have to.

Still, though, she hoped that, if she was destined to fight Sans, he'd go a bit easier on her this time. Maybe she can spare him since he knows she hasn't killed anyone… In this timeline, at least.

Man, was Frisk glad that Sans couldn't remember the previous timelines. When she left the Ruins, she slipped up and greeted Sans before he told her to turn around and even called him by name before his formal introduction. He didn't seem to think much of it, but Frisk knew better than to take chances with the pun-loving skeleton. She's been very careful ever since.

Despite that, she was receptive to the idea that, perhaps Sans was destined to end her journey right here. At least, if she were going to die, she died knowing she hadn't let herself be lied to again. Her entire second journey through the Underground, Frisk didn't harm a SOUL. Never again will Frisk allow herself to be fooled by the likes of a tiny, whining voice.

It was at this point that Alphys, the Underground's Royal Scientist who'd been helping her through Hotland, decided to speak up. Alphys followed her through the remainder of the CORE after Mettaton's batteries ran out and hadn't spoken up until this point.

"S-so," she began with her usual stutter, "you're about to meet ASGORE h-huh?" Frisk simply nodded in response. "You must be…" She seemed like she was holding onto something she didn't want to say. Frisk stopped and turned to face her. "Y-you must be…" Frisk tilted her head, confused. "Pr… Pretty excited about all that, huh? You'll f-f-finally… You'll finally get to go home!" Alphys was avoiding eye contact. Frisk thought that was weird, but she just chalked it up to Alphys being Alphys. No biggie. She kept walking. Alphys stopped again after a few feet, but Frisk didn't notice. "W-wait!" Frisk turned around again, startled.

"Is something wrong, Alphys? Are you okay?" Frisk asked, genuine concern for her new friend beginning to show.

"F-fine, I just…" She looked away. "I mean, um… I… I was just going to, um… Say goodbye, and…" Alphy's eyelids lowered. She still refused to make eye contact with Frisk.

Frisk scratched the back of her neck. First Toriel, now Alphys… Was leaving the Underground really such a good idea? It seemed she was just hurting the same people she'd wanted to protect by leaving. When she left the Ruins, Frisk simply chalked up Toriel's apprehension to the fact that she very probably thought she'd be killed once she left, as so many other human children before her had. She didn't think for a moment that she actually just didn't want her to leave her behind. She weren't used to being cared about. Now here she was, with Alphys, who seemed equally saddened by the prospect of Frisk leaving the Underground.

Frisk approached Alphys, who simply stared at her own feet. "Hey, you know, I, uh, still have this cell phone. I've been calling a couple of other friends with it for a while now. If you'd like to, once I'm out on the surface, you can call me all you want. It'll be like I never left!"

Alphys didn't look comforted. "Yeah… Once you're on the surface."

"Listen, Alphys, I know that it feels like I'm just up and leaving you. But, like, I can't stay here forever," Frisk reasoned.

"O-oh, of course not!" Alphys quickly responded. "After all, you probably have family up there, and… Stuff."

Now it was Frisk's turn to avoid eye contact. "Yeah… Family…"

"B-but… That's not why I'm acting so… Funny."

"Oh?"

"...human. I… I can't take this anymore." Alphys swallowed hard. Whatever she was about to tell her, Frisk could tell it was heavy. "I… I lied to you."

Frisk closed her eyes. "Alphys, if this is about your role in the obstacles I've encountered thus far, I promise I'm not mad. If I'm being honest, Mettaton's antics were actually kind of fun and I'm glad you were able to make yourself feel like a star! You're my friend, and-"

"N-no," she interrupted. "It's… It's not that either. It's… It's about the barrier." Her voice began to break. "I told you that, with your powerful SOUL, you could cross the barrier. I wasn't being entirely truthful. A human soul isn't strong enough to cross the barrier alone."

Frisk's studied her intently. Her face was unchanging. "So you're saying we've gotta find another way across, right?"

Alphys sighed. "It takes at LEAST a human soul."

"Which I have."

"A human soul, and…" she swallowed again. "And… And a monster soul." She looked back up at Frisk, whose DETERMINATION levels dropped significantly upon hearing that. "If you want to go home…"

"No..."

"You'll have to take his soul. You'll have to kill ASGORE. ...I'm sorry." With that, Alphys turned to leave.

Angry at nobody in particular, Frisk let out a groan and punched the wall, swearing under her breath once the pain shot through her arm. Startled, Alphys turned and looked at her again.

"A-are you okay-?"

"I thought-!"

Alphys looked like she could cry. "I know, I should have told you sooner, I just-!"

Frisk fell to the floor, completely undetermined. "I thought I had done everything right this time."

Alphys tilted her head, confused. "This time…?"

Frisk brought her knees up to her body, resting her chin on them. Tears flowed freely from her eyes. "I don't want to kill again…"

Alphys' eyes widened. "A-again?" She had no idea she'd been leading a murderer through Hotland. She could have sworn she saw her spare every monster in her way. Not that she was really watching at all times, but… Then she realized. The one fight she hadn't been watching. "Undyne…"

This child in front of her… Had killed Undyne. The horrifying realization finally set in. "You… Killed Undyne?"

Frisk's eyes widened. She looked up at the reptilian above her. "No! No, I didn't. Undyne is fine. She's with her friend, Papyrus, in Snowdin right now. I haven't harmed anyone."

Alphys sighed in relief, although she definitely would call Undyne after this to make sure Frisk was telling the truth—but she felt like she could trust her, for some reason. "So, why then, did you say you…?"

Frisk, realizing her slip up, stood up. "Nothing. I mean, I didn't. What I meant to say was I don't want to kill Asgore. I'm going to go up that elevator, march through New Home, walk past the judgement hall, and-"

Alphys interrupted. "Okay, now, hold on, there's a new bit of information. How do you know the layout of Asgore's castle? You've never been in there." This was as confused as Alphys has ever been. She knew for a fact this was the human's first time passing through Hotland. So how, then, did she seem to know what was coming? "Come to think of it," she added, "you seemed to know EXACTLY where you were going after you came into the CORE. You knew what rooms to avoid, which path to take… You ignored my instructions like you knew the layout had changed."

 _She's adding two and two together,_ said the voice in Frisk's head. _You know what to do._ Indeed, Frisk knew what to do. She stood up, sighing. Alphys came clean with her. It was time she came clean with Alphys. _That's… Not what I meant,_ the voice said, slightly disappointed. Frisk chuckled internally. In response, the voice blew imaginary raspberries. Alphys was a scientist. If anybody needed to know about this strange ability, it was her. She just hoped she wouldn't think she was totally crazy.

"Alphys," Frisk began, "I haven't been entirely truthful with you either." She explained the power to her, leaving out most of the murder-y details. What it does. What she can do with it. Its limitations. Alphys' eyes were wide the entire time. When she'd finished explaining it, she looked like she'd grown two or three heads right in front of her.

"T-time travel?" She asked for clarification. Frisk nodded. "That's… That's…" Alphys' dorky grin from earlier returned in full force. "That's amazing! It's just like this anime I watch, about this girl who's stuck in a time loop, and they keep reliving the same day, and she has to find a way to stop an alien invasion beforetheendofthedayandthere'sthisguyshelikesandsheusesthelooptolearnlotsabouthimandalsoshe'sinabandbutbecauseofthisalieninvasionshenevergetsanythingdonebeforetheearthexplodesbutonedayshefindsoneoftheiragentsandwhoopsIalmostspoiledthebigtwistwhereherloveinterestisworkingwiththe-"

"Alphys," Frisk snapped her out of it. "Focus."

Alphys blushed slightly. "Uh, right. So, um… Y-you've… Killed Asgore before?"

Frisk shook her head. "I didn't get to his throne room the first time."

Alphys frowned. "So then who…?" Frisk's face grew sad. _I guess she has to learn about the other thing, too,_ she thought. It wasn't a matter of who did Frisk kill. It was a matter of who DIDN'T she kill. Before she could answer, however, Alphys shook her head. "I guess it doesn't matter. Whoever it was, you clearly felt bad enough about it to… Do things over?" Frisk nodded.

"So… You're sure there's no other way to get past the barrier?"

Alphys shook her head. "No. A being can only cross the barrier if they possess both a human and a monster soul. The barrier can be broken with the use of seven human souls, but…"

"...I would have to die."

"Exactly."

The corridor was silent for a bit. Finally, Frisk spoke up. "So… Why haven't you killed me, then?"

Alphys' eyes widened. "What are you-?"

"I mean… If you killed me, you could bring my soul to Asgore, he becomes a god and breaks the barrier, and the surface is taken back from humanity. All of your problems are very easily solved with my death."

Alphys searched for the right answer. "I don't know," she admitted, finally. It was true. Frisk's continued existence was an obstacle that kept the monsters underground. And yet, she couldn't bring herself to think of her like that. Frisk was her friend, not a hurdle to be jumped over.

More silence. Frisk knew what to do. Deep down, she knew it was the right thing to do. If Sans was going to kill her in the next room anyway, then…

Frisk looked back up at Alphys. "I won't fight Asgore."

Alphys breathed a sigh of relief. "K-kid, you have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that. I know it's not your home, but… The Underground isn't so bad, once you get used to it. I-if you'd like, I mean, you can stay at my lab, if you don't have any other place to stay, although-"

"I'm not staying here, either."

"...what?"

 _What?_ the voice asked _._ Frisk definitely knew what she had to do. She had to do the right thing. She had to do what was best for everyone around her, even if it wasn't in her own best interests. "I'm going to let Asgore take my soul." She looked Alphys in the eyes. "You're going to be free." With that, Frisk entered the elevator.

As the doors were closing, Alphys wedged her foot in them, preventing the elevator from leaving. "H-hang on! You can't be serious!" she exclaimed. "You can't- Y-you can't just tell me what you just told me and expect me to just forget about it and go back to my lab like I didn't hear anything!"

"Well, that's awkward, because that's exactly what I'm expecting you to do," replied Frisk. Alphys rolled her eyes. Clearly this human had been hanging out with Sans. Alphys briefly wondered what he was doing these days before snapping out of it and turning her attention back to the human in front of her.

"I can't let you go up there." Alphys had made up her mind. She was going to take the human back to her lab, by force if necessary, then call Undyne and figure out what to do about this situation.

"Assertive!" replied Frisk in a somewhat colder voice. "You really think you can keep me here?" Alphys took a step back, careful to leave her right foot wedged in the door. She could have sworn she saw a red glint in the human's normally green eyes, but as soon as she blinked, the human shook her head and seemed to have returned to normal. "Uh, sorry. That was rude of me," the child responded. Child? Alphys wasn't sure. She looked to be about twelve or thirteen, but the tone she took up just now sounded like someone who was much older and much, much more tired. In any case, mental age aside, she were physically too young to be going on a suicide mission.

Alphys crossed her arms. "You're coming back to my lab." Normally, Alphys would've backed down ages ago, but she couldn't afford to this time. A child's life was on the line. The king had killed six. Alphys was going to save one, and any others that came after them. The scientist was only twenty-three years old and already she'd ruined enough lives to last a lifetime. She was going to make up for that, starting now.

Frisk shook her head. "This is something I have to do. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

Alphys was annoyed, now. "If you go up there and hand your soul to Asgore, we're going to war. Do you understand that? It's not just your life on the line, here." The child's life was her primary concern, but she wasn't about to tell her that. "If you die here, you'll be the first of millions." The human looked surprised. She hadn't thought of that. Good. She was swaying her. "Tell me, human, where's the closest city once you leave the mountain?"

"That'd be Denver."

"And how many people live in Denver?"

The human looked like she had to think about it. "I dunno. Half a million? It's not a very big city."

Alphys' eyes widened. "Whoa, wait, half a million isn't 'big'? Just how many humans are up there? And what's a 'big' city like?"

"There are around seven billion people on Earth, about five million live in Colorado—the state where Mt. Ebott is located—three million live in the metropolitan area immediately surrounding Denver, and a big city like New York has around eight million people," the human explained.

 _Seven. Billion. Humans?!_ Alphys' mind was racing. She truthfully had no the planet could even hold that many people, and the Underground only had a few thousand monsters. "W-well if you give Asgore your soul, you can consider Denver's entire population obliterated in a day. Colorado in a week. The world in mere months. That's how powerful he would become."

"I can't say we don't have it coming," Frisk replied dryly. "But… You're right. It certainly would be a shame if my death were the first of billions."

Satisfied, Alphys nodded. "I'm glad you see it my way, human!"

Frisk put her finger on her chin. Just how was she going to convince Asgore not to just straight-up kill a bunch of humans once she gave him her soul? Years of hatred can't be solved with one generous act, that was for sure. This truly was a pickle.

With a sigh of defeat, Frisk pushed the button, opening the doors all the way, and stepped out of the elevator. "Ok. Obviously, my plan needs more planning. I still one hundred percent intend to give my soul to Asgore—" Alphys was about to protest, but Frisk continued anyway. "—but I can't give it to him without knowing for sure that he won't use it to start World War III."

 _Eh?! There have been two global wars already?!_ thought a suddenly alarmed Alphys. She wondered how the humans hadn't killed each other themselves by now.

"So for now, I'm gonna stick around the Underground. It's not like I have anywhere else to be anyway. You win. I'll come back to your lab with you."

Alphys smiled. "Kid, you have no idea how relieved I am right now. I've been screwing things up my entire life. Saving you might be the first thing I've done right since… Ever."

"Can I ask a favor, though, Alphys?"

Alphys nodded. "Anything."

Frisk looked away. "Please don't tell anyone else what I told you today. About the time travel. About the things I did in another time. ESPECIALLY not Undyne."

Alphys was used to keeping secrets, but for once she was keeping somebody else's secret. Somehow, that was relieving. She put her claws on Frisk's shoulder. "Human," she began, "you have my word. Not a word of any of this will leave the two of us. It'll just be our little secret, uh… What's your name? I never got it."

"Frisk. Just call me Frisk."

Alphys smiled. "Frisk. I promise you, from here on out, your past doesn't matter to me. The future is what we should be focusing on."

The two walked back to Alphys' lab, Mettaton and his dead batteries in tow.

 _The future,_ Alphys thought. _I like the sound of that._ For once, she was looking forward to the future.


	2. Chapter 2: Rain Check

The Judgement Hall was quiet.

Too quiet.

Sans had been waiting for an hour now. He saw the kid move through Hotland. He heard the news of Mettaton's defeat. She should have made her way up here by now. Granted, SHE didn't know that she was supposed to be here, and Sans supposed he didn't either, but he had a hunch that she'd be here. Sans' hunches were never wrong. If she was so determined to get to the barrier, she'd HAVE to come through here. It didn't seem like her to suddenly turn back after having progressed so far.

Sans even had a whole speech prepared about how the human was so determined to befriend every monster and how she never gained LOVE, but she gained love, and he was going to explain EXP and LOVE and all that good stuff. Frankly, he was a little bummed out that he wasn't belting out the speech. He NEVER prepares things in advance, much to his brother's dismay. So the one time he did…

Then he got to thinking… What if the human wasn't here yet because she was… _avoiding_ him?

Obviously she had no reason to believe Sans would be here, and she probably had no reason to avoid him either, although that scare he gave her in the hotel was probably a good excuse, he admitted. Yet… Sans had this theory. The human seemed to… Know things. Ahead of time. Like she'd done all of this before.

Sans read a lot about something called a RESET. The RESET was the power to go back and relive certain points in time, effectively creating a new timeline. If this kid truly could travel through time… And if she was truly avoiding him…

Well, then she had a very good reason to avoid him. Sans would have only given her a good reason to avoid him if she gave him a good reason to give her a good reason. There's only one thing that kid could have done to make him do something like that.

He decided to wait here another hour, and if the human didn't show up by then…

This kid had a lot to answer for.

Alphys entered her lab, dragging Mettaton's lifeless body, with Frisk following closely. She placed the robot on a table upstairs and made a mental note to change his batteries later. For right now, though, he could deal with taking a nap for a few hours.

Downstairs, Frisk was examining the figures Alphys had on her desk. Miniature statues of anime characters lined the desk, although Frisk didn't recognize any of them, having not watched a whole lot of anime (or any TV, really). The rest of the desk was littered with papers, soda cans, and dirty dishes.

The computer itself was clearly custom built. "Bell Pepper Electronics", a company Frisk was somewhat familiar with through billboard ads and their name just generally being on everything from computers to TVs to air dryers, apparently manufactured the original PC, as the name and logo was engraved along the top of the case, but Frisk suspected none of the original internals were intact. At the very least, the fan had been replaced, although the newer fan was evidently too big to fit into the PC, as a hole had been cut through the case's top panel and the fan had been screwed on, with wiring running into the PC through a small hole that had been drilled. Frisk suspected that other parts had similarly been replaced.

The monitor itself—an old CRT, also manufactured by Bell Pepper—was on, the computer's web browser opened to a video sharing site. Apparently, before leaving the lab, Alphys had been watching videos about grumpy gamers or something like that. Frisk didn't really have time to use the Internet on the surface, so she had no idea who these people were. She briefly wondered how Alphys had access to human Internet before the reptilian in question returned to the lab's main room.

Feeling as though she'd been caught snooping, Frisk quickly apologized, although Alphys quickly waved it off.

"Oh, don't worry about it. If there were anything worth hiding I'd have logged off—" Alphys then noticed that, aside from the video site, an image board was also open in the browser, which Frisk had not seen. "—uh- I- I-" Alphys stammered, blushing, before quickly closing the window. "On second thought, m-maybe I shouldn't leave so many windows open! It wastes, uh, memory?" Several seconds of awkward silence then followed. Finally, Alphys just shut down the PC altogether. "We don't need this today anyway…" she mumbled.

"So, I suppose you want to know more about the whole time travel thing?" asked Frisk. Alphys nodded excitedly.

"I mean, supposing this is all true—"

"I can prove it."

"I believe you—"

"No, hang on, just give me a second." Frisk paused for a moment. Alphys was confused as to what she was doing. Finally, Frisk looked back up at her. "You're about to get a phone call."

"Wha—?" Suddenly, Alphys' phone rang. Startled, she dropped it on the ground, adding a new crack to the already heavily damaged screen. She stared at the phone in wonder. Apprehensively, she picked it up. "H-hello?"

"It's the pizza guy," said Frisk calmly. "Your order's been delayed."

"Hello, thank you for ordering MTT Resort Delivery," a very bored sounding voice said over the phone. "Unfortunately, due to the resetting of some puzzles in Hotland, our delivery of your order has been delayed. Your order, number 50846, will arrive within the next half hour. Have a nice day." The line went dead. Alphys slowly turned to look over at Frisk.

"H-how—?"

"Like I said, everything I've said so far is true," explained Frisk. "My power is directly linked to how determined I am at any given moment. Finally being able to tell somebody about this ability created a 'save' point which I can return to at any time." Frisk gestured to Alphys. "Namely, the point exists in the space of time where I told you I could prove I had this ability. I simply waited around and observed what happened in the next minute, then returned to that point."

Alphys just stared, mouth agape. "Th… This is incredible… can you save states at will?"

Frisk shook her head. "No. The fact that a save point occurred right then was a total fluke. I can't really predict when or where I'll feel determined enough to save, it just sort of happens."

Alphys grabbed a notebook and started writing this down. "Fascinating… These notes are totally confidential, just between you and me, so don't worry."

Frisk shook her head. "I'm not worried. I know I asked you not to tell anyone, and I trust you, but if you did decide to tell, say, Undyne, and she decided to, say, kick my ass, I wouldn't blame her."

Alphys raised an eyebrow. "Why would she— oh, right. The murder thing." Frisk grimaced. "Frisk, look, I— okay, murder is not good. I know. I won't ever understand why you did it in the first place. Maybe it was self defense? I don't know." Frisk wasn't making eye contact. "But… You went back and you fixed your mistakes. Okay? I've made, like, a billion mistakes and I promise you that whatever you did? I did worse things. Okay? Things that I don't EVER want people to find out about. So the fact that you not only went back and fixed your mistakes, but fully own up to them, even though with this ability you could have wiped my memory clean, says something about you." Alphys put a hand on Frisk's shoulder and lifted her chin up with a finger on the other hand. "You're a good person, Frisk. Good people screw up sometimes. What matters is that you fixed it." Alphys gave her a genuine, encouraging smile. "I promise I won't tell anybody about this. But I think if Undyne found out, she'd understand the situation too. And she would want to help you be better."

Frisk looked away again. "Alphys, I didn't just kill one monster. I didn't even just kill a _few_ monsters. I… I hurt a lot of people. I did horrible, horrible things. I can never, ever make up for it."

Alphys put one hand on her hip. "Well, we're all alive now, aren't we?"

Frisk looked back at Alphys. "Well, yeah, but—"

"Then you've already made up for it," the reptilian said. "I can't ever fix my mistakes. You did. Cherish that."

Frisk looked conflicted. Her eyes darted around like she was looking for something. Finally, she looked back at Alphys. Before Alphys knew what was happening, she was wrapped in a tight hug.

"Oh!" Alphys had her breath knocked out of her as the human squeezed tight.

"Alphys, you have no idea how great it is to finally be able to talk about this," Frisk said through tears. "The whole time I've been down here, I've had to be strong, but… But it's hard!" Frisk buried her face into Alphys' chest. The reptilian patted her back. "I want to be the good guy. I want to help people, but… But… I can't stop thinking about the things I did." Frisk wiped a tear away and looked back up at Alphys. "I don't have the right to be upset about this. I know. The pain I've caused is greater than any pain I'll ever feel."

Alphys shook her head. "Frisk, I know the feeling. I really do. But dwelling on the past… Future… Whatever…" she searched for the right words. "The only way to proceed is to look forward. Look towards the future. Not the future that you could have created in another time. The future that you're creating right now, in this time. Okay?"

After a moment, Frisk nodded. "I… Guess. Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Alphys grabbed her notebook again, but thought better of it, setting it down on the table. "If you don't want to talk any more about this, I won't make you." More silence. "I-I'll go get you something to drink. And when the pizza gets here, y-you can have some of that as well." With that, Alphys walked over to the fridge. It was at this point that a rather concerning question popped into her mind.

 _...what do humans eat?_ Alphys looked over at Frisk. Would pizza and soda be proper nutrition for a human about twelve to fourteen years old? She truthfully had no idea. In addition, she didn't want to ask. Then she might come off as rude, and she didn't want to be rude. But what if pizza was toxic to humans? She didn't want to make Frisk sick! Sighing, Alphys figured that a day of soda and pizza wouldn't hurt her. Supposing Frisk decided to stay with her, Alphys made a mental note to go into New Home tomorrow and pick up a larger variety of foods. This'd be a good excuse to start that diet she's been putting off, anyway.

Alphys grabbed a can of soda and closed the fridge. She turned around to walk back over to Frisk before noticing that there was somebody else in the lab with them. Somebody who she hadn't seen around the lab in a very long time.

Sans the Skeleton was lounging around near the human.

Briefly wondering how he got in without making any noise, Alphys frowned and quickly walked over. _Why is he here NOW?_ she asked herself. The last she saw of him, he had walked out on her and the lab after the last royal scientist went and fell into the Core back when they were teenagers. His departure left her the only person capable of carrying on Gaster's work, and she was still pretty bitter about that. If he'd been around for the DT experiments…

"Heya Alphys. Just thought I'd drop in," said the skeleton nonchalantly. Alphys didn't believe him for a second. Sure, they'd been friends in the past and on any other occasion she'd be delighted to see him. But the idea that Sans just happened to show up now, when a human was hanging around? She didn't buy it. Sans always kept secrets even before he left the lab. Alphys could be forgiven for not trusting the lazy skeleton.

She faked a smile and leaned on her desk. "Sans. It's been a while," she said, trying not to sound hostile. "What brings you here?"

"Yeah, I was wondering if I could speak to the kid," Sans responded. Alphys couldn't help but notice that the glowing white pinpricks that were meant to represent his pupils were slightly dimmed. "Alone."

Alphys glanced between Frisk and Sans. Frisk looked uncomfortable. "Whatever it is you have to say, I'm sure you can say it here."

"Sorry, Al. This is top-secret stuff." The skeleton winked. "You don't even know the secret handshake."

Alphys rolled her eyes. "You're very funny, Sans. Alright, I'll give you time to—" her thought was cut off when she noticed that Frisk was standing abnormally still. Usually she was always playing with her hair or twiddling her fingers or doing something of that nature. She glanced over at her computer. Now she was really wishing she hadn't shut it off. "Just, uh, hang on a minute, I need to… Check something, first."

"Take your time."

Alphys pressed the power button on her PC. After staring at the BIOS screen a few seconds, Alphys was brought to the login screen, which she quickly bypassed. Finally, she was at her desktop. She dug through her files, looking for the right program. Finally, she found it; " ", its icon a monster soul. She double clicked it and quickly repositioned her webcam so that it was facing Frisk and Sans.

"Alphys, what are you doing?" Sans asked, somewhat alarmed.

"Sans you need to step away from the human right now," responded Alphys, somewhat more commanding than she normally would have. On her screen, she could see what was going on clearly. Frisk's soul was blue. Her soul color was red. Ergo, something or someone was weighing her soul down, and Alphys knew exactly who it was.

"Alphys—"

"I don't know what you plan to do with this human," Alphys interrupted, "but you aren't doing it."

"You're making a mistake—"

"Sans!" Alphys yelled. A few days ago, Alphys wouldn't have stood up to anybody like this. Today she couldn't afford not to. "Get the fuck. Out of my lab."

"It's my lab too—"

"Not for the last seven and a half years it hasn't been!" Even Sans was taken aback by Alphys' newfound confidence. Even when they were kids, she was always the quiet one. "You are not going to harm this child, Sans. I don't know if that was your intention or not, but holding her down with magic and forcing her to sit down doesn't paint a very flattering picture of you. Get out of my lab. I don't want to see you around here again."

"You have no idea what this kid is capable of," said Sans, completely ignoring Alphys' warnings.

"But I know what YOU'RE capable of, Sans." Alphys didn't want to let on how much she knew about Frisk, since she wasn't sure how much Sans knew about Frisk and she didn't want to give him more information than he already had.

"Alphys, I think this kid has hurt people."

"She has no LOVE, Sans."

"That's— That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?"

Silence. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Alphys crossed her arms. "Try me."

"Alphys, the kid is avoiding Judgement. The only reason she'd have to do that is if—" Sans began before being cut off again.

"Actually, she isn't avoiding anything, Sans." Alphys gestured towards Frisk. "I talked her out of going to the barrier.

Sans looked surprised. "You? You talked her out of it? The least determined monster in the Underground talked the most determined human to ever come through the Underground out of going to the barrier?" Sans put his hands in his pockets. "Forgive my skepticism, Al, but this is all a little far-fetched."

Alphys looked away. "Believe me, crazier things have happened today." She looked back at Sans. "Get out. Or I'm calling the royal guard."

Sans put his hands up in the air. "Alright, alright, you got me. I'll be on my way, now." He walked over to the door, arms still in the air as if he were surrendering. With his back to Alphys and Frisk, he started speaking again. "Just…" He glanced over behind him. His eyes were devoid of all light. "Don't say I didn't warn you." With that, the lights in the building flickered, and Sans was gone.

Alphys stared at the door for a few seconds, before collapsing onto her chair and letting out a breath she'd been holding in. She glanced over at Frisk. "You okay, Frisk?" Frisk nodded. "Good." Alphys stared up at the ceiling.

Frisk got up on the desk and sat down, facing Alphys. "Thanks for standing up for me," she said. "Sans can be… Scary, but…" She glanced around the room. "But he's not a bad monster."

Alphys let out a sigh. "I know he's not, Frisk. He just makes bad decisions sometimes." She looked over at the human. "But we can't afford to make bad decisions."

"Well, actually, we can."

Alphys blinked. "Well, technically, yeah, but wouldn't it be great to go the rest of your life without loading?"

Frisk nodded. "I think I've lost the privilege," she joked.

Alphys raised an eyebrow. "Jesus, that was dark," she said, although she couldn't help but chuckle. "Frisk, let me ask you something." Frisk nodded. "Do you actually want to stay here? Or would you rather be somewhere else?"

Frisk thought about it for a moment. Well, the doorway to the Ruins was locked, presumably for good. As much as she'd love to go back to Toriel, she couldn't do that. And she figured Snowdin was sort of off limits for right now, at least until she was sure Sans was cool. No pun intended.

"There's really nowhere else for me to go," she admitted finally.

Alphys sat up in her seat and nodded. "Then it's settled." She glanced over at Frisk. "Tomorrow morning, we're going to start making this place more livable for a human. Frisk, you can stay here for as long as you feel like you need to." She thought about something else. "And we're going to make the Underground as a whole a safer place for humans to be, whether the king likes it or not. Any other human that falls down here will be safe, I'll make sure of it."

Frisk tilted her head. "How are you going to do that?"

Alphys grinned, the first time Frisk saw her do that. "Being friends with the Captain of the Royal Guard does have its perks."

Frisk scratched her head. "Hmm, I don't know, Alphys. I think I was the exception, not the rule. Undyne and I are cool now, but I don't know how willing she'll be to extend that trust to EVERY other human that falls down here."

"Well only like seven humans have fallen down in the last fifty years, yourself included," Alphys reminded Frisk. "I think we have time to ease her, and/or her successor into things." Alphys chuckled. "Who knows, by the time another human comes down here, I could be fifty. By then a whole new generation of monsters, one more accepting of humans because of you, will have grown up."

Frisk considered the thought. "You know, I hadn't thought of that."

Alphys leaned back in her seat. "Frisk, I think this might be the start of a new era in monster-human history. And who knows, maybe eventually we'll convince Asgore, huh?" Alphys smiled. Yeah. The era where Alphys actually does something right starts now. She could feel it.

Sans shuffled through the snow to the large door which he had become accustomed to speaking to. He leaned up against the door, hands in his pockets. "You know, I think it's time I told you my real name." The voice on the other side didn't respond. "It's Hugh," he said.

"Hugh what?" the other voice asked finally.

"Hugh Normus," responded Sans, gesturing with his arms out wide as if the voice could see him.

But no laughs came.

"Sheesh, tough crowd," he said, putting his hands back in his pockets.

"Do you remember what I asked of you several months ago?" asked the voice.

"Yeah. You asked why the skeleton was sad." He chuckled. "Because he was feeling bonely."

The voice didn't laugh. "The other thing."

Sans sighed. "You requested, if a human ever came through that door, for me make sure they stayed safe."

"Last week, a human came through this door. What became of them?"

"They're fine."

"They made it to the barrier, then?"

Sans shook his head, again, as if the voice could see him. "Nope, the king lives."

Silence. Then, a question. "How have they survived this long? They haven't...?"

Sans debated how he should answer. Finally, he answered with "Nah. Everything's business as usual. The kid just has a way with words. Nobody wants to hurt 'em."

The woman sighed with relief. "I thought this might be the case."

"Even the Royal Scientist is on their side."

"Really? Dr. Gaster, of all monsters, is on friendly terms with a human?" the voice asked incredulously.

"Nah, Gaster passed away nearly eight years ago," replied Sans. "I mean the NEW Royal Scientist, Alphys."

"Oh," replied the woman. Then there was some silence.

"You know something?" Sans said finally. "I don't think the human can be trusted." Sans glanced at where his fingernails would be if he had skin. He should get them trimmed. "She's not your average human, but she's just as dangerous."

"That's another bad joke, right?"

"Oh yeah. It's real funny." Sans put his hand back in his pocket. "Heh… I gotta be honest with ya. I almost did something I'm not proud of today."

"What did you do?"

"Almost hurt the human."

"But you didn't."

"I didn't."

"Well then that's what matters," the woman responded. "A lot of us have thought about doing a lot of things that aren't right, but so long as we don't act on those thoughts, everything continues as normal."

Sans hadn't really thought of that. "Huh." He looked back at the door. "So let me ask you this. Let's say somebody did something really bad. But then they felt bad about it, so they went back and fixed things. Should they be forgiven?"

"Yes."

Sans blinked. "Thanks." He got off the door. "Welp, my brother will probably be looking for me. I gotta head off now. Sorry to be a _boner_ on the mood today."

The woman chuckled. "It's fine. I enjoy talking to you. Until next time."

"Ciao," Sans said before walking back towards Snowdin. Maybe when Alphys has had time to cool down, he'll go back and sort things out.

He just couldn't shake the thought that something wasn't right. At this point, he wasn't even sure if the kid was responsible for… whatever it was he thought was going on.

He hoped she wasn't.


	3. Chapter 3: The Dump

Flowey sat outside the lab, watching as Chara and Alphys left in the direction of Waterfall. He supposed they were going to try and find new furniture to make that laboratory livable for a human. The only thing he didn't understand was _why._

"Alright Chara, what's your game…?" he asked himself. Chara wasn't one to give up on a plan after having committed so much time to it. Flowey knew this from experience. So why had they reset? That smiling trash bag was a tough fight, sure, but…

Further, Flowey could have sworn he overheard Chara telling the Royal Scientist about the reset. He didn't know where this heel-face turn came from… But it interested him. This was new. This was something that had never happened before. In that moment, watching Chara walk with Alphys, he made a decision. He wouldn't meddle at all. Everything he'd been planning up until now was irrelevant. This was so much more exciting.

Frisk and Alphys were en route to the best place where one could find furniture in the Underground: the dump!

Well, realistically speaking, there were probably more than a few furniture stores in the New Home, the Underground's capital, but Frisk and Alphys both agreed that it was probably best to avoid New Home for now, as much as Frisk wanted to see the city; she'd only seen it from afar before.

"The dump, you see, is where I find EVERYTHING I need," explained Alphys as they trudged through the wet caves of Waterfall.

 _Probably because she identifies so well with her surroundings,_ said the voice in Frisk's head. Which reminded Frisk, at some point Alphys should probably know about that, too. But not right now. Frisk knew better than to dump yet another massively confusing secret on the lizard.

On the way to the dump, Frisk noticed that, whenever they passed a monster like Shyren or Aaron, Alphys would avoid eye contact and keep moving. _Huh. Odd,_ she thought. _I should ask her about that soon._

Once they reached the residential area, Alphys' nose picked up something concerning. "What's burning?" she asked. She looked over and saw that smoke was billowing from Undyne's house. "You said that Undyne was staying with a friend in Snowdin, right?" she asked, worry apparent in her voice. Frisk nodded. "I suppose this is why."

Frisk put a finger on her chin and contemplated the situation. "You know, that fire started a couple of days ago," she said. "I feel like the house should be ash now."

Alphys just stared at the burning building. "Just as tough as its owner, I suppose." Sighing, she turned around to head for the dump, only to bump into the fish in question, who greeted her with a very large, toothy grin.

"Al!" she shouted. "Great to see you!" Undyne then grabbed Alphys in a headlock, which Frisk couldn't help but chuckle at.

Alphys' newfound confidence from the day before seemed to vanish immediately. "Ah-um, U-Undyne! G-gee, who knew you'd be here… At your house…" Frisk pinched her nose bridge.

Undyne didn't seem to notice how flustered Alphys was, likely because that's how she normally is. Nonetheless, she let go of the lizard. "Yup, just checking up on the ol' homestead." She looked over at her house. "Mhmm. Just as I thought. It's still on fire. Yup, she's a tough one! It'll be WEEKS before this fire dies down."

"Y-you haven't tried to put it out yet?" asked Alphys incredulously.

"And deprive it of a chance to fight the fire off itself? NONSENSE! My house doesn't need any help!" She whistled at her inanimate house. "You go get that fire! You can do it!" The house, of course, didn't respond. Undyne looked back at Alphys and noticed that Frisk was right behind her. "Kid! There you are! Haven't seen you since that time you burned my house down!"

Alphys' eyes widened. "Y-you did this?!"

"Sure did, she lights fires even faster than Papyrus!" Undyne responded, oblivious to Alphys' concern.

Frisk crossed her arms. "Oh, I can't take all the credit," she said as modestly as possible. "You did all of the heavy lifting."

Undyne waved a hand. "Oh, pfffft, it was your first time." She then looked back over at the house. "Besides, I was holding back anyway." She looked over at Alphys, who was just staring at the house. "Al? You alright?"

Alphys shook her head. "I have a headache."

Undyne seemed to remember something. "Oh! That reminds me! Papyrus' lazy brother wants to talk to you two." She shrugged. "He wouldn't say what for. Hey, Alphys, you never told me you knew Sans."

Alphys' eyes narrowed. "I do, unfortunately." Why was he still bothering them?

Undyne blinked at Alphys' sudden change in tone. "Uh, yeah, he's pretty annoying, alright." She crossed her arms. "But, uh, something tells me there's something else going on here."

Alphys shook her head. "It's not for you to worry about. Regardless, you can tell Sans not to wait up." She started walking towards the dump. "We have nothing to say to him." Frisk glanced between Undyne and Alphys, shrugged, then started towards the dump, her feet splashing in the ankle-deep water.

Undyne frowned, and followed as well. "Whoa, whoa, hang on, Al, is there something I don't know here?" she asked while following. "Well, I mean, a lot, obviously, but specifically about you and Sans?" She stopped in her tracks, coming to a realization. Her frown worsened and her brow furrowed. "Did he hurt you? Because if he did—"

"He didn't touch me," interrupted Alphys. "He tried to harm Frisk, though."

Undyne blinked. "Frisk? Who the hell is—?" She glanced at the human. "Oh, the kid." The realization set in again. "Wait, the kid?! Why the hell would Sans try and hurt the kid?!"

Alphys stopped and turned to face Undyne. She looked visibly angry, something Undyne had not seen before. It was so… cool. "I don't know, Undyne. He thought she was dangerous. Right! She's the dangerous one! God, he's such an... A-And to think we used to—" Alphys grabbed her forehead, another headache setting in. She took a couple of deep breaths and calmed herself down. "Anyway, it's not worth getting worked up over. The bottom line is I don't want to see Sans right now."

Undyne looked conflicted. Frisk just looked uncomfortable. They looked at each other, frowning. Undyne sighed. "Al, I don't know what history you've got with Sans. It doesn't matter, but…" she put a hand on Alphys' shoulder. "Look, Sans won't be bothering you anymore. I'm going to see to that personally. As for you, Frisk, I'm going to want to know WHY he wanted to hurt you in the first place."

Alphys' eyes widened. "You can't possibly be suggesting—"

Undyne shook her head. "Alphys, Sans is lazy, he's inconsiderate, he's not funny, and he's just all around a bad patrolman." She looked back over at Frisk. "But he's not an idiot, and he's not a bad person." Frisk nodded. "I'm not saying Frisk did anything to deserve being attacked like that. What I am saying is that Sans must have had a good reason for doing what he did, even if it seems totally out of nowhere to the rest of us." She crossed her arms and looked off at a nearby trash bag. "At least, he BETTER have a good reason." She shot a toothy grin at Alphys. "Or I'm gonna kick his butt until his dust turns into dust!"

"Heh. Good luck with that one," said Frisk, although it really didn't sound like Frisk. She turned her head and coughed. Alphys once again noticed a red glint in her eyes, before she blinked and her eyes returned to normal. "Uh, what I mean is, Sans is pretty good at dodging... responsibilities. He'll probably dodge a butt kicking just as well."

Undyne grinned and closed her eye. Or maybe she was winking? She ruffled Frisk's hair and laughed. "That he is, kid. That he is." She opened her eye and knelt down to Frisk's level. "So, why do you think Sans went and did that? I thought you two were friends." She gasped and stood up. "Did you two have a fight? That's AWESOME! Who's winning? I gotta teach you how to sling sh- mud in an argument."

Undyne was so busy getting excited that she didn't notice that Frisk seized up. Alphys, however, did notice. "Frisk?" The child didn't respond. "Frisk, are you alright?" Undyne stopped fooling around long enough to notice that Frisk was clearly not well.

"Kid?"

Frisk leaned against a wall for balance and clutched her head. "Uh, sorry, it's just…" She squeezed her eyes shut as if trying to block something out. "A lot of bad memories."

Alphys' eyes widened. She looked over at Undyne. Undyne looked confused. "So, I guess you and Sans really are on bad terms after all," Undyne said.

Frisk let out a dry laugh. "You don't know the half of it." She glanced over at Alphys. "I'll be fine. I think I've calmed down."

Undyne grinned. "Great! Now, what brings you two to Waterfall?"

Alphys was still looking at Frisk, one eyebrow raised. "We're getting furniture," she responded slowly. She looked over at Undyne. "Frisk here is going to be staying with me for a while."

Undyne perked up. "Huh? Staying with you?" she asked. "I thought the kid was on her way to the barrier?"

Alphys pushed in her glasses. "Yes, well, there's been a change of plans." She leaned on a pile of trash. "Undyne, do you know what it takes to cross the barrier?"

Undyne nodded. "A human soul."

Alphys shook her head. "It takes a little bit more than that. If Frisk goes into that throne room, she's leaving either in a casket or with the king's dust on her hands." Alphys pulled a poster out from the trash pile and examined it. "Neither option is very appealing. Say, Frisk, do you know who Larson Larson is?"

Frisk, who had been sifting through her own pile of trash, turned around and looked up at Alphys. "He's running for president up on the surface, I think." She went back to looking through the pile. "I dunno what his platform is, but his name sure is stupid."

Alphys looked back at the poster. "Huh. 'Better than nothing.' That's not a very good slogan." Suddenly, the trash heap behind her started to wobble. She turned around, only to be buried in a landslide of trash. She poked her head out above the mountain and spat some old food out.

Undyne walked over and started pulling things out of the trash. "Man, humans sure are wasteful. Look at all of these perfectly good DVDs!"

Alphys freed her arm from the trash and grabbed one of the DVD cases. "Oh, they were right to throw this one away." She tossed it over her shoulder and got to digging the rest of her body out of the pile.

Frisk gasped. "Oh! Undyne! Help me pull this out!" Undyne dropped the DVD cases she'd been holding and went to help Frisk dig out salvageable furniture.

A few hours passed, and the three were exhausted, but they'd managed to pull out enough stuff to make Alphys' lab liveable for… Well, anyone who wasn't Alphys. They'd found several new (to them) sets of clothing, surprisingly undamaged and only in need of a wash, as well as a new bedframe (something which would be a temporary arrangement, as Alphys intended to surprise Frisk with an easy-to-describe folding bed of her own), a new dresser, and one of the video game consoles Alphys didn't already have.

When they were faced with the issue of getting all of this stuff back to the lab, Undyne suggested they load it all onto a raft and have the River Person tow it back to Hotland. This, of course, left them a bit of free time, as they were told it would take about an hour to get everything to Hotland.

Undyne cracked her knuckles. "Man, I'm starving. Who's up for Grillby's?"

Alphys, though tired, could definitely go for some food. Suddenly, she thought better of it and shook her head. "Sans lives in Snowdin, right? Maybe we shouldn't—"

Undyne waved a hand. "If Sans tries anything, he'll have to answer to me." She crossed her arms. "I still can't believe he'd try and hurt the kid. It makes my blood boil."

Alphys coughed. "Uh, d-didn't you try and kill Frisk?"

Undyne scoffed. "That was, like, different, or something! I didn't know the kid was such a weenie!" Frisk giggled. "When you're the captain of the Royal Guard, you gotta make split-second decisions! You don't have time to think about whether or not the child you're about to impale on a spear is innocent!"

Alphys rolled her eyes and smirked. "I bet you didn't even read her rights to her." As Alphys joked, Frisk noticed how much more confident she'd become… Because of her? No, that couldn't be right. Frisk knew deep down that most people were usually worse off for having known her. Yet she couldn't deny just how much less unstable Alphys seemed since yesterday. Perhaps having somebody depend on her had an effect on her. Perhaps Alphys viewed Frisk as the thing that could potentially turn her life around.

 _Or perhaps Frisk was just over-thinking this,_ the voice said. Frisk rolled her eyes and just kept ignoring it. _Listen, pal, I'm just the realist here,_ it continued. _Look, you're a little upset with me right now, I get it. I can admit when I'm wrong. Maybe that whole last reset was going a little overboard, but in all fairness, I was like 95% sure I was going to get something really cool out of it._

Frisk's inner dialogue was interrupted when she noticed Alphys staring at her expectantly. "Frisk, is that alright with you?"

Flustered, Frisk asked, "Um, what? I zoned out."

Undyne chimed in. "We're gonna head back to the lab and watch anime."

Frisk smiled and nodded. "Yeah, that sounds great!" With that, they all started towards Hotland.

The voice wouldn't shut up. _Listen, I don't want you to think I'm some deranged killer or something. I don't do something unless there's a definite reward, and I was sure I was going to get a reward back there. I was going to reset afterwards anyway._

Frisk raised an eyebrow. _You mean_ I _was going to reset?_

The voice didn't answer for a moment. Finally, they responded with _You know that reward I was talking about?_

Frisk shook her head. _We'll talk about this later. You're, at the very least, psychologically unstable._

 _Well you're the one who's talking to herself, so who's the crazy one here?_

Outside of Frisk's mind, Undyne received a phone call. She checked the ID before deciding it was important. "Hang on, guys, I gotta take this," she said before walking towards a branching hall. "You guys go on ahead, I'll catch up." With that, she answered the call as she split ways with her friends. "What's up?"

When they were alone, Alphys stopped walking. "Frisk, we need to talk about something." Frisk turned around to look at her. "S-so… I-I know I said I'd drop this, but… Th-that thing with Sans got me thinking." She scratched the back of her neck trying to find the right way to ask the next question. "So, um… What I'm trying to say is…" Her eyes darted around the room. "Have you fought Sans before? In another timeline?" Frisk simply nodded, not making eye contact with Alphys, who crossed her arms. "So that's why that thought freaked you out." Alphys wondered whether or not to ask Frisk about the outbursts where she seemed like another person entirely, but figured that was information Frisk would feel more comfortable talking about with time. "As I've said, I used to work alongside Sans as an assistant to the last Royal Scientist. He has some… Unusual abilities, to say the least. So I can understand why you'd be a little freaked out." She put her claws on Frisk's shoulder. "But don't worry about it. You haven't done anything wrong in this timeline. If Sans tries anything, he's in the wrong, not you."

"I don't want to avoid Sans," Frisk said. "He was… Is a good friend. He's scared, too."

Alphys sighed. "I know, Frisk. I'm just scared for your safety. What if—?"

"What if?" Frisk repeated the question. "I'm going to be down here a while. I need to not have any enemies. So, tomorrow, we're going to get Sans to come down to the lab, and we're going to talk this whole thing out." It wasn't a request.

Alphys hesitated, but responded finally with "Okay, fine. B-but you need to have a save point ready in case something goes wrong!"

"It won't."

In the other room, Undyne was having her own conversation. "What's up?" she asked as she picked up the phone.

"Heya," a familiar voice said.

Undyne scoffed. "Sans. You'll be pleased to know that your concerns are completely unfounded and are based on no logic or reason whatsoever. I just checked most of Waterfall. No dust, no dead monsters… Well, except for Napstablook. No… Nothing." She glared at her phone. "The kid's not dangerous, Sans, and I think you knew that."

"Juuuust makin' sure," he said.

"What's more, I just found out that you attacked her back in Hotland?" Undyne said in an accusatory tone.

"I didn't. I just wanted to have a little chat with her." He yawned. "Al overreacted."

Undyne shouted into her phone. "Hold your tongue! Alphys doesn't overreact. She's real pissed, Sans, and I don't blame her."

"Besides, even if I had…" He suddenly sounded much more serious. "Isn't that my job?" Undyne groaned. He was doing the creepy no-pupil thing on the other end, she could tell. "Isn't it YOUR job?"

"My job, Sans," she began, "is to protect the inhabitants of the Underground from any and all threats." She leaned against a wall. "The human, as of right now, is an inhabitant of the Underground, and you, my friend, are any and all threats." She clenched her fist threateningly as if Sans could see it. "So I suggest you deal with whatever crazy paranoia spell you've suddenly come down with, or I'll deal with it for you."

"Hey, relax, guy," he said, suddenly far more relaxed as well. "I'm just investigating some things that aroused my suspicion."

"And one more thing," continued Undyne. "Don't tell me how to do my job."

"So, tell me," Sans said. "What makes this human different from the two you killed?" With that, Undyne hung up and threw her phone at the wall, shouting in rage. After spending the next four minutes calming down, she picked the phone back up and looked at the screen. It was already shattered before she threw it, so she didn't really know if she broke it more. Sighing, she made one more phone call. "Papyrus. Don't wait up for me. I won't be in Snowdin tonight. I've got other business to take care of."

With that, she hung up and started towards Hotland. She was going to watch movies with her friends, and dammit, she was going to have fun.


	4. Chapter 4: Undyne's Nightmare

Absolutely nobody was having fun.

As it turns out, the anime they all picked out, one which even Alphys had not yet seen, was very, very bad. The concept was cool; a bunch of gamers get trapped in a virtual reality MMO and a select group of people have to beat the game's 100 dungeons in order to free everyone. The only problem was that everything else about the show was horrible.

Undyne and Alphys had fallen asleep on the couch, the show was so boring. They were slumped up against each other, which Frisk thought was really cute. She looked at the clock. 4AM. She guessed this was as good a time as any to have a little chat with the voices in her head.

 _Alright friend, come on out,_ she said. The voice responded with a groan. _Aw, are you sleepy?_

 _We share a body, partner. You're sleepy._

 _Deal with it. It's time to talk._

 _Fine._

Satisfied, Frisk sat down on her new bed. The mattress was far more comfortable than she thought it would be. _So, what exactly was this "reward" you were planning to get?_

 _Gee, you're pretty straight to the point, huh?_ asked the voice. _Well, if you must know, I was sort of hoping you'd feel guilty about the whole "genocide" thing and hand your soul, as well as total control of your body, over to me._ The voice chuckled. _That plan didn't really work out._

Frisk was confused. _What would you have done with my body?_

 _I dunno. Reset. Free the monsters somehow. Probably kill a bunch of humans. I sort of don't like humans._ The voice briefly took control of Frisk's body in order to glare at her reflection in a nearby mirror with their red eyes. _You and I are no exception._

Frisk shook her head. _Please stop doing that._

 _I get bored. It's only for a few seconds, what's the big deal?_

Frisk clutched her head. _It gives me a headache._

The voice scoffed. _Oh, boo hoo, you know what gives me a headache? Not having a head. Or an anything else, for that matter._ Frisk laughed. _It's not funny! Being dead is pretty boring, pal!_

Frisk still laughed. _I'll bet._ Frisk thought of more questions to ask. _ASL?_

 _Excuse me?_

 _Age, sex, location,_ Frisk answered. _Or I guess your name, for the last one._

Chara thought for a moment. _What year is this?_

 _2015._

 _Ok, I'm 64, male, I'm from a suburb outside of Denver, and my name is Chara._

Frisk blinked. _THAT'S why Flowey kept calling me that._

 _Yeah, he's pretty goofy, isn't he?_

 _Do you know him?_

 _I did._

Frisk didn't inquire further on that topic. _How old are you actually? Like, taking into account the fact that you're super dead and probably haven't aged in a few decades?_

 _Uh, 14, I think?_ He hesitated to think about it. _Let's see, I fell down here in 1963, and I was 12 then, and I died in 1965, so yeah, 13 or 14, depending on what month I died. Which I can't remember at the moment._

Frisk let out a small gasp. _Whoa, you were here a whole two years?_

 _Eh._ Chara did some approximations. _Just about. …Oh, I died in November. I remember now. Yeah, I was 14. I had to have been around that puberty age, because I was around the same age as my brother, and I remember once mom and dad caught Asriel with an adult magazine and they gave him a talk about—_

That last bit of information caught Frisk off-guard. _Wait, wait, back up. Who?_

 _Asriel. My brother._ Chara suddenly realized why Frisk was confused. _OH, yeah, his name was pretty stupid. Toriel and Asgore just combined their names and—_

 _You were raised by monsters?!_

 _Oh, yeah, that's some pretty vital information._

 _Also, Toriel and Asgore were married?_

 _Was that not obvious?_

Suddenly, Frisk heard a yelp coming from the couch. Undyne had shot up, screaming, and summoned a spear, glancing around frantically. She looked _terrified._ Once she realized there was no real danger, however, she let the spear dissipate and rubbed her eye.

 _Did… Did she just have a nightmare?_ Frisk wondered. _Chara, we'll continue this discussion later._ She got up and ran over to Undyne, who was still recovering from her panic attack. Alphys was still fast asleep, having only flopped over to the other side of the couch.

Undyne noticed the kid running over to her. "Heh. Hey, kid. Did I wake you?"

Frisk shook her head. "I was already awake. Undyne, are you okay?"

Undyne nodded groggily. "Fine. Just had a dumb dream." She yawned, stretching as she did so. "No big deal."

Frisk crossed her arms. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Undyne shook her head. "Talking's for weenies, and I'm tired anyway."

"There's nothing wrong with being a weenie."

Undyne yawned. "Alright, kid, if it'll make you feel better. Come on, let's head outside."

Frisk shook her head. Undyne sure did take her pride seriously. She did wonder, though, what things Undyne could possibly be dreaming about that freaked her out that badly. Once they were both outside, feeling the heat of the magma below immediately, Undyne leaned against the building's wall.

"Talk to me, Undyne. What's up?" Frisk inquired.

Undyne chuckled. "How old are you, Frisk? Thirteen? Fourteen?"

"Around there."

"You sound a lot older sometimes. All the time, really." She sighed. "You sound even older when you do that weird red-eye thing." Frisk made a short gasp. "Yeah, I noticed. It's weird, but it's not really my business." She leaned her head against the wall and closed her eye. "My point is that you understand a lot more than I think people probably give you credit for. With that being said, this is some pretty heavy sh- stuff." She opened her eye and looked back at Frisk, who was listening intently. "So, uh, brace yourself."

"I am braced."

"Heh. Alright." She drew in a deep breath, holding it in for a moment, before letting it out. "Have you ever done anything that seemed like the right thing at the time, only to realize later that it probably wasn't?" Frisk nodded. "Hard to believe. You're basically… Perfect." Frisk was about to protest, but Undyne cut her off. "Not perfect in the sense that you don't have any flaws. Perfect in the sense that… You always want to do the right thing. You try your hardest to please everybody, and you put others before yourself." Undyne shrugged. "I gotta say, kid, I envy that a lot."

"Where is this going?"

"Nowhere, I guess. I guess I'm just jealous. Anyway… Back to what I was saying before. I've made a lot of mistakes over the years." She paused, her eye searching the cave floor for nothing in particular. "I'm twenty-five, and I'm leading the Underground's all-in-one defense team, police department, and army. Do you know how crazy that is?"

"It's an impressive achievement."

"Well, not everything I do is impressive. There are two things I did in particular that I'm not exactly proud of anymore."

"Elaborate."

"Well…" She was searching for the right things to say. "God, I don't know how to talk about this." She sat down on the ground, arms around her knees. Frisk sat down and joined her. "Okay, so, you know that there were six other humans down here before you, right?"

 _Seven._

"Uh, I believe there were seven, actually," Frisk corrected. _Thanks, Chara._

"Huh?" Undyne did some mental math. "No, you're right. That would make you number 8. Anyway, after the first one died and something happened with the king's biological kid, Asgore declared war on humans and said any who fell down here would be killed and their souls harvested so that he can be a god and blah blah blah, you know this story." She summoned a spear and examined it. "I joined the Royal Guard when I was 17, after four souls had already been… Taken." She sighed and closed her eye. "Things were… Pretty quiet for a while. I mostly just solved petty disputes between the monsters, but…

"About two years ago, humans five and six fell down. Siblings, one boy and one girl." She opened her eye slowly and stared at seemingly nothing. "I remember everything about them. What they looked like. What they wore. Their soul colors." Her voice began to break as she spoke. "God, they can't have been older than twelve. They might have been twins. I don't know." She twirled the spear in her hand. "Well, anyway, they came out of the ruins, and we were all sort of trying to get them. They were clever ones, I'll give them that. They stuck to the shadows, never letting anyone see them. They managed to get to Waterfall before anyone even knew what they looked like. Papyrus to this day swears you're the first human he's ever met, but I'm willing to bet he was within feet of these humans at one point.

"So they come into Waterfall, right? Finally, somebody saw them. Woshua, I believe. So now I was sort of scrambling to get to them. Like Papyrus, I had never seen a human before, and I really wanted to prove my worth. At the time, the guard captain was a soldier named Greatest Dog, and he was planning to retire soon, so…"

"You wanted to be his replacement?" Frisk asked.

"Hell yeah I did." Undyne smiled slightly at that thought, then frowned. "He, uh, 'fell down' a couple of weeks after that so I guess I got my wish. Anyway… These kids… I found them just outside of Temmie Village. I gave them this whole big speech, about how we only needed three more souls, and all that noise." She sighed. "Looking back on it… They just looked scared. At the time I was proud, but…" She groaned and put her face in her hands. "I'm a god damn idiot."

Frisk patted her on the back. "Continue." Undyne looked back up at her. "Uh, I mean, if you want to." Frisk looked away. "Sorry."

"It's fine," responded Undyne. "I don't know why I'm upset anyway. I don't have the right to be."

"Sure you do."

"Anyway… We… Fought, although they really didn't put up much of a fight. You couldn't even call it that. A fight. A slaughter is what it was." Undyne sighed. "I got the girl first. The only positive thing I can say about that was that it was quick. I doubt she felt any pain at all. I tossed the spear and she was… Gone. Like that." A tear rolled down her cheek. "At the time, I didn't even think about it. I killed someone. Maybe I didn't WANT to think about it.

"Regardless, the brother was horrified and enraged. I would have been too." She pointed to her eyepatch. "I ever tell you what happened to this eye?" Frisk shook her head. "That kid happened. He caught one of my spears and tossed it right back at me. That was the last thing I ever saw out of that eye."

"What… happened next?" Frisk asked slowly, seeing her friend in an entirely new way now.

"What do you think happened next?" Undyne crossed her arms and peered over the edge at the lava. "If you're waiting for the part where the hero triumphs, you can stop listening now, because I can tell you right now the villain won that battle. This whole time I've just rationalized it as 'following orders', but my orders are to protect the innocent, and I failed at that." She stood up. "The nightmare I just had involves me reliving that day from the kid's eyes. I just… Watch myself kill these kids over, and over, and over again."

"Do you have it… Often?"

"Not until you showed up. I never thought about that day again after that. Maybe I repressed it because even then I knew, deep down, that what I did was wrong… But then you came out of those ruins and…" she shook her head. "The worst part is I'd have done it again, if you hadn't spent so much time running from me."

"Then you'd be free."

"Then Asgore would become a god. And more humans would die." Undyne yawned. "I don't blame you for not wanting to fight him. It's more than just your life at stake." The spear dissipated, its blue glow leaving the area. "I'm jealous of you, Frisk. I've made some pretty big mistakes."

"I'm not perfect either, Undyne," Frisk said, internally debating something. She forgot, however, that Chara could hear her thoughts.

 _Frisk. What are you doing?_ Chara asked, concerned.

 _Relax._ "Undyne… Look, you…" She took in a deep breath. "You did what you thought you had to do. You did what you were told to do. You didn't know any better. Believe me when I say that I know what that's like."

Undyne scoffed. "How can you—"

"I just can, okay? I can't tell you why or how or what the circumstances were right now, but I've made some really bad decisions too. I'm sure Alphys has her fair share of screwups, too. What's important is that we take those experiences and learn from them so that we can look forward to a better future instead of dwelling on a horrible past. Okay?"

The irony was not lost on Frisk that she partially ignored this same pep talk from Alphys.

Undyne, who'd been looking down at her feet, smiled slightly. "Thanks, kid. I needed that." She started to walk back into the lab.

"What are you going to do when another human comes into the Underground?" Frisk asked. Undyne looked up and contemplated the question. Frisk was eagerly anticipating the answer.

"My orders are to deliver all humans—or their souls—to the capital," Undyne said. She contemplated the implications of that situation. She looked over at Frisk, then pulled a Delta Rune badge out of her pocket, which was normally pinned on her armor. She ran back outside and tossed it, with a grunt, into the lava below. "I quit," she said, before turning around and walking back into the lab. Frisk stayed for a moment longer to stare at the spot where the badge sizzled.

 _Gee,_ said Chara. _You sure do have a way with words, huh?_

Frisk kept staring into the lava. _I didn't mean for her to do that._ She yawned. _Thanks for not interfering._

 _You had the situation under control and I had nothing to add._

 _Chara, if you're going to stick around, there are some ground rules I need to lay down._

 _Okay._

 _No murder._

 _Got it._

 _If you're going to butt in, warn me first._

 _No guarantee, but okay._

 _Be nice to people._

 _That's not fun._

 _Chara._

 _Fine._

Frisk nodded, satisfied. _I have nothing else to say to you._ She walked back into the lab, where Undyne was reading one of Alphys' "history books" on the couch.

"Hey, kid. Thanks again," she said.

Frisk nodded. "Don't mention it." Frisk decided it was time to finally get some sleep. She marched over to the bed and sank into it, sleep overcoming her instantly.

Once the human was asleep, Undyne grabbed her phone and headed outside. She dialed the number, not caring if the recipient was asleep or not. She knew he'd probably be up already. He always was.

The phone rang twice before it was answered by a rather excited sounding skeleton. "Undyne! Greetings! How was the business you said you needed to take care of?"

"Hey, Papyrus. Listen, I need to get some things off my chest."

"Have you tried prying them off with a wedged tool of some sort?"

Undyne chuckled. "Do you have time?"

"Always!"

Undyne sat down and recounted her story to Papyrus, who listened to her intently. Finally talking with others about all of this, as well as carrying the knowledge that she could do better in the future, filled her with determination.

She was looking forward to the future.


	5. Chapter 5: Sans' Visit

**A/N: I'm very glad that people seem to be liking this story so far. I'm gonna be honest, this is all still very new to me (I'm an animator, so I'm normally writing scripts and whatnot), but it's been a very fun exercise and I'm sort of learning the ins and outs of narrative storytelling and figuring things out as I go along. I'll be putting another note at the bottom of the chapter addressing certain comments. Thanks for reading, I hope you're enjoying this story.**

The next morning, after Frisk had changed into a new shirt—an orange Denver Broncos jersey she found at the dump—and some new pants, she found some eggs in the fridge and fried one each for herself, Alphys, and Undyne. While she was cooking, Undyne, having woken up, walked over and watched, coffee mug in her hand.

"You're not doing that right," she commented as Frisk carefully flipped the egg. "See, you're hardly getting any air time."

"Good morning, Undyne," Frisk said with a chuckle.

"Sheesh, I did NOT plan to spend the whole night here." She took a sip of her coffee. "Not that I didn't have a good time. So, what's on the agenda today?"

"I should be asking you the same thing," Frisk commented.

"Huh? What do you—" Undyne suddenly remembered the previous night. "Oh, right, I don't have a job anymore." She looked down at her coffee, swirling it a bit, before taking another sip. "Well, I guess my whole day is open, now!" she said excitedly. "Now, what about you? What are you doing?"

"Well, I had a couple of things to take care of today," Frisk responded. "For one, Sans might be coming over later."

"What?!"

"Relax, Undyne," Frisk said as she moved the first egg onto a plate. "Alphys and I thought it was about time we had a little chat with him about what transpired a couple of nights ago." Frisk handed the plate to Undyne and got to work making the second egg. "I'm going to be here a while. Having enemies is dangerous. I'm going to have to rebuild any bridges I've burned as soon as possible."

"But YOU didn't BURN this bridge!" Undyne protested. "Whatever happened is on Sans!"

"See, I kind of did burn this bridge. I…" Frisk glanced around the room, trying to come up with a good lie. _Maybe I should just tell her about the resets?_

 _Not a good idea,_ said Chara. _Not right now._

Frisk thought about it for a moment. Finally, she sighed. "I was tipped off that Sans would be waiting for me in the castle so he could 'judge' me, and that freaked me out, so I bailed. I guess that gave him a reason to be suspicious of me? After all, no truly innocent human would fear judgement."

 _Clever._

"Still…" Undyne shook her head. "Alright, well, if Sans is gonna be here, I'm sticking around, because… One, I'm not doing anything anyway besides figuring out who's going to replace me on the guard, and two, I don't exactly trust him."

"He never actually did anything violent to me. He just, like, restricted my movement with his weird blue soul attack thing."

Undyne shook her head. "You are way too forgiving." Her eye fell and she frowned. "I would know."

"Undyne, come on."

"Ah, I know, I can't be talking like that." She grabbed a fork and started eating the egg, talking with her mouth full in the process—which _disgusted_ Chara. "It's just, you know, I'm not all that used to talking about my feelings and stuff, you know?" She swallowed. "Last night was kind of really new for me, bringing up repressed memories and whatever." She took another bite, then waved a hand dismissively. "I'll get used to it. I'm doing two years' worth of guilt tripping all at once right now."

Alphys, who was still lying on the couch, slowly opened her eyes and smelled something cooking. Her eyes shot open and a look of worry replaced her previous expression. She immediately shot up and ran towards the kitchen area. "What's burn—" she slid to a stop as she saw Frisk cooking the eggs, Undyne eating a well-cooked fried egg. "...ing."

"Mornin', Al," Undyne said with a smile. She took another sip of her coffee. "Hey, I didn't know you had a kitchen. Or a living area. I've only ever seen the one room."

"What did you think the doors on the fourth wall led to?"

"I never look at the fourth wall."

Frisk was confused. "Wait, what makes that wall the fourth wall? How's the order decided?" Suddenly, her phone rang. "Oh, hang on a second." She put the egg on a plate and handed it to Alphys, then picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Human! Good morning! I was simply calling to ask you how the surface was!"

Frisk glanced at Alphys and Undyne. "There's been a change of plans, Papyrus. I'm not crossing the barrier just yet." She sighed. "Uh, actually, I was wondering if you could do me a favor?"

"Anything!" Papyrus answered excitedly.

"Can you tell Sans to meet me at the lab in Hotland? It's important," Frisk said. Alphys sighed, and Undyne groaned.

"Hmmm… I shall see if I can find my brother." Suddenly, he sounded annoyed. "He's so lazy he blends in with the furniture! Bear with me while I find him." Frisk moved the phone away from her face for what she could tell was going to happen next. "SAAAAAAANS!" Yup. Frisk could hear a ruckus coming from the other end of the call. "Where are you? Have you fallen asleep with a lampshade on again? How many times have I told you not to do that?"

Frisk hung up. "He'll be here soon," she said, sort of half assuming, as she never really got any confirmation. She then noticed that she burnt her own egg. "Aw, hell," she complained. She shrugged and put it on a plate.

"Oh, here!" Alphys said as she swapped their plates around so that Frisk had the good egg.

"Alphys, you don't need to—"

"It's fine, really!" she assured. "I usually eat junk food, so a burnt egg is no big deal." She shrugged. "On the other hand, I feel like you probably haven't had a good breakfast in a while."

"Yeah. She hardly ate her fries," a voice behind them said. Alphys jumped. Undyne gasped and summoned a spear, turning around to meet the mysterious voice. Frisk simply set their plate aside and walked past her friends.

"Hello, Sans."

"Heya." Sans glanced at the food, then at Alphys and Undyne, the former standing slightly beside the latter, who was glaring threateningly. "Heh. You've been busy, huh? Oh well. Hey, is any of that grub for me? I haven't eaten in like twenty minutes." Silence. "Jeez, who died?"

"S-Sans. We've been expecting you," Alphys said finally.

"Yeah. I thought so." He winked. "You guys are the ones who called me, after all."

Frisk led the group into the living area, where they all sat down; Alphys, Undyne, and Frisk on the couch, Sans in an armchair.

"So, we wanted to talk to you about… What happened the other day," Frisk said as Sans sat down.

"Oh, yeah. I remember. When you avoided judgement and all, right?" He closed his eyes. "I don't blame ya." He opened his left eye, which was completely void of all light. "People with something to hide are always afraid."

Undyne looked like she was about to get out of her seat and kick some skeleton butt, but Alphys stopped her. She let out a low growl. "Sans, you KNOW anybody else would be just as freaked out by your weird little ritual, regardless of any assumed guilt or paranoia on your end."

"Which begs the question," Sans continued, "of how you knew about it?" He leaned back in his chair. "See, there were no warnings ahead of time. I didn't let anything slip. Papyrus doesn't even know I have this job." He chuckled. "It's almost as if you already know what's going to happen, well before it happens." He blinked, and light returned to both eyes. "That's just a theory, of course. You probably have a better explanation."

Alphys raised a claw. "I-I told her about it."

"Nah."

Undyne leaned forward. "Are you calling Alphys a liar?"

"I ain't callin' her a truther."

"How dare—"

"Look, she's got waaaaaay darker secrets," Sans said. Alphys gasped and stared at him wide eyed. "For example, she's a total dork." Alphys sighed and relaxed a bit.

"That wasn't a secret, Sans," Undyne said, unamused.

"The point is that Al here didn't tell the kid about the judgement," Sans concluded. "I doubt anybody in the Underground knows I do that besides the king." He cracked his knuckles and reclined, one leg casually crossed over his knee. "So let's get one thing straight before we continue. I don't like being lied to."

"Hypocrite," muttered Undyne.

"So, let's hypothesize how the kid here knew I'd be there." He looked at the three friends. "What do you three know about resets?"

Undyne looked puzzled. "What?"

Alphys just narrowed her eyes. "What do _you_ know about resets?"

"Ok," Sans said. "That's one person who doesn't know, and one person who does know."

"I didn't say—"

"Kid! Help me out here, let's break this tie. Do you know what a reset is?" Sans awaited Frisk's response.

"I read about it in a book," she replied.

"Like I said, kid, I don't like being lied to," he reminded her. "Let's assume for the moment that NOBODY knows what that is, I mean, why would you? A reset basically lets someone with a very large amount of determination travel back to an important moment in their life and re-write history."

Undyne gasped. "Whoa, that sounds awesome!"

"It is awesome," Sans assured. "When it's in the right hands, of course. Unfortunately for us," he glanced at Frisk. "The reset is in the wrong hands."

Alphys stood up. "Alright, Sans, that's enough of the accusations. We invited you here to make amends, and you're not presenting a good image of yourself right now."

"Listen, Al, I am perfectly content to forget everything that's happened… So long as the human admits that she had other reasons for turning back."

Undyne stood up as well. "She didn't want to fight Asgore, you bonehead! Think about what you're saying for a second, this kid's a total pacifist! If fighting is the only way to continue, of course she's going to turn back!"

Sans thought about this for a second. "You bring up a valid point." He looked between Alphys and Undyne. "So, I can guess that she told you," he pointed to Alphys "the truth, and straight up lied to you," he said, pointing to Undyne. "That says a lot about whose friendship she values more." Undyne was seething with rage. "Heh. But you're right. There's no point in letting burned bridges stay that way. I think this conversation has gone on long enough. I just wanted to let you guys know why I did what I did. I don't have any concrete evidence, but I'm pretty sure this kid did some really bad things in another timeline. But I guess it doesn't matter, because she went back on it. Because that makes everything okay. Just hit a reset button, and the consequences of your actions are a null value." He put his hand out. "I know I sound like I'm being facetious, but kid, I've decided to forgive you for whatever horrible things you may have done in the past. C'mon, buddy. Let's forget all this, okay? Let's hug this issue out and just… Move on. Everything will be a lot easier, for me and for you."

Sans held his arms out wide, eagerly anticipating the human's next move. Frisk, however, was suddenly remembering what happened the last time he gave her a "hug".

 _Frisk stood, knife in hand, just feet away from Sans, who was sweating._

" _Ugh… That being said…" His breathing was heavy. He really was tired. "You, uh, really like swinging that thing around, huh?" Frisk was tired too. "Listen. I know you didn't answer me before, but… Somewhere in there. I can feel it."_

" _What are you talking about?" she asked._

" _There's a glimmer of a good person inside of you," he continued. "The memory of someone who once wanted to do the right thing."_

I did, _said the voice in Frisk's head._ At one point.

" _Someone who, in another time, might have even been… A friend? C'mon, buddy. Do you remember me?" He closed his eyes. "Please, if you're listening… Let's forget all this, okay?" He winked. "Just lay down your weapon, and… Well, my job will be a lot easier."_

Sans is sparing you, _said the voice. Sans held his arms out, awaiting the human's next move._

 _Frisk trembled._

Don't you do it.

I can't do this anymore.

Frisk, don't you dare.

 _Frisk slowly and carefully put her weapon down. Sans raised an eyebrow_

God dammit, Frisk, you're a moron, _said the voice._

" _Alright, Sans." A tear fell down her cheek. "I can't take it anymore. I did all of this because… Something was telling me I had to. That if I got enough LOVE, I could do something extraordinary, and…" She looked away. "I wrongly sacrificed your friends to do so."_

 _Sans looked surprised. "You're sparing me? Finally. Buddy. Pal. I know how hard it must be to make that choice. To go back on everything you've worked up to. I want you to know… I won't let it go to waste. C'mere, pal." Frisk ran over and gripped Sans in a tight hug._

" _I'm sorry," she said._

 _That's the last thing she remembered before feeling bone pierce her body._

Back in the present, Frisk stared at Sans' peace offering.

"Kid? Waiting on you?"

After another moment of staring, which Alphys took to mean "this kid's seen this peace offering before", Frisk slowly got out of her seat and hugged Sans. Alphys' eyes were wide as she watched the exchange. _Please have a save, please have a save…_

Sans closed his eyes. "Heh… I can't believe…" he began, "...that you would fall for this twice."

Frisk's eyes widened in fear. Alphys nearly jumped from her seat, before a very long, very wet fart noise erupted from the pair. Sans let go of the hug to reveal a whoopee cushion he'd been keeping up his sleeve. "Seriously. It's like I don't even have to try." He let out a low laugh, before noticing that nobody else was laughing. "...Eh. Not every joke's gonna be a hit. Welp."

"OH MY GOD!" Undyne shouted. "You can't take anything seriously! What the hell's your problem, Sans?!"

 _You can practically see the steam erupting from her ears,_ said Chara. _...well, if she had any, anyway._

Sans stood up and stretched his arms. "It's been fun chattin'. I'll get out of your hair now. See ya around." Sans left the room.

All three of the remaining individuals just stared at the door.

"Sans is weird," Undyne said after a moment of silence. "You know, Frisk, you shouldn't have accepted that compromise! Now he thinks you're some weird time travelling murderer! Don't compromise with the other person if you are not the one who is in the wrong, dummy!"

Frisk nervously scratched the back of her neck. "I mean, if it helps make them not want to kill you?"

Undyne sighed. "Fair enough. Listen, I dunno what half of that conversation was about, because I didn't really understand most of it, but if there are some things I still don't know, I'd appreciate getting caught up." Frisk and Alphys looked at each other. "Or not, I mean, you know, some things are secrets for a reason."

"Undyne," Alphys said, sighing, "we've been keeping a really big secret from you, I'll admit to that. I've been keeping a really big secret from the both of you, actually. Unfortunately, the gravity of these secrets necessitates that they stay secrets a little bit longer. I'm sorry."

"We'll tell you everything eventually," Frisk said. "I promise."

Undyne grinned. "Hey, I totally understand. It took me two years to spill the beans on my problems, if it takes a little while for you guys to tell me everything, that's fine by me!" She blinked before adding "But I would like to know eventually please, thank you."

"You will, Undyne," said Frisk. Undyne started to walk out of the room. "Where are you going?"

She stopped and turned slightly to address Frisk's question. "I'm gonna go tell Asgore I'm resigning. It's only fair that I tell him in person. Don't worry, I won't mention you." She frowned. "Ah, stupid me, I already called him about you when I was chasing you through Waterfall. Well, whatever. Maybe he forgot." She started walking again, but stopped a few steps later. "And, Frisk… if part of that secret you're keeping involves…" She turned to face Frisk and Alphys and reworded her statement. "If you did something in the past that you think is unforgivable… just remember what you told me last night. You're a good person, Frisk. I can see that. You too, Alphys. I don't care what Sans says. Your pasts don't matter to me."

Frisk gave her a sad smile. "Thanks, Undyne."

"With that being said," Undyne continued, "a really big part of owning your mistakes is working to fix them. I'm going to try my best to fix mine. I would hope you two try and fix yours. ...But that's none of my business." She smiled at them. "I'll see you two around." With that, she left.

Alphys turned to Frisk. "Frisk, we're not ACTUALLY going to tell her about the resets and the murder thing," she asked nervously, "are we?"

"We promised we would."

"Yeah but-"

Frisk turned to face Alphys as well. "Alphys, just because I undid it doesn't mean I didn't do it. It would be best if I came clean about that with Undyne."

"But-"

"It's like you said, Alphys. She's our friend. She'll want to help me be better."

Alphys whined. "Okay but if you tell her YOUR secret, then I have to tell her MY secret, and my secret is kind of worse than your secret because my secret isn't exactly something that can be fixed."

"Alphys, in case you haven't noticed, she has a thing for you? Okay?" Frisk chuckled. "So I don't think you can really say anything that'll lower her opinion of you."

"W-w-what do you mean she has a thing for me?!" Alphys' face turned red and she began stammering out gibberish.

"...you didn't know?" Frisk smirked. "She wants some of that dino booty!"

"...Frisk please don't lie to me, it's not very nice."

 **A/N: One big thing somebody mentioned is that my timeline doesn't exactly line up perfectly with what most people assume to be Undertale's timeline, specifically the date that Chara fell and Undyne's past experience (or lack thereof, in the case of the game) with humans. In this story, Chara fell in 1963, NOT 201X as is implied by the game's opening cinematic. The reason for this is because the story's first chapter was originally conceived as a prequel to a cartoon I'd been working on for my YouTube channel, before I decided to expand this into its own sort of thing. Because I tend to write most of my cartoons as existing in the same fictional universe, I had to make changes to Undertale's story so that it made sense with everything else. This necessitated pushing Chara's fall date and, subsequently, Asriel's date of death, back around fifty years so that the cartoon could conceivably take place in present-day Colorado. A lot of other minor things mentioned in the story originated from my cartoons as well. As for the apparent fact that, in the game, Undyne questions what humans are made of... that's a legitimate goof on my part. I don't have every single line of dialogue from the game memorized and I legitimately had no idea there was anything in the game that so much as insinuated that Undyne had never met a human. Regardless, that's what I wrote, so I'm sticking with it.**

 **As I said before, this whole story is kind of a big experiment to see if I can keep something like this up and I'm glad people are actually reading it because it means I've got to be doing SOMETHING right. These first five chapters were part of a sort of expositiony act which I really didn't plan out all that much because I still was unsure where I wanted to story to go. I think now I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do and I'm gonna sit down and actually write out all of the narrative beats I want to hit, so the next chapters should hopefully be a bit more cohesive and less all-over-the-place. There might be a time skip. I'm not sure yet. What I do know is that we're not going to be seeing the surface right away. Get ready for more time travel shenanigans with dinonerd!**


	6. Chapter 6: Memory

Frisk opened the refrigerator. In the last two weeks, she and Alphys had been setting up a small garden to grow some healthier, more organic foods and ingredients. Anywhere else in the Underground, this would be an impossible feat, but they had the advantage of living in the most advanced laboratory below the Earth. Also, the only one, to Frisk's knowledge. Thanks to the technology at their disposal, and a little bit of monster magic to speed up the process, the seeds they found in the dump grew into healthy fruits and vegetables in no time. This helped facilitate a proper and nutritional diet for Frisk, and a more superficial diet for Alphys, who wanted to finally cut out her unhealthy eating habits and try and get fit.

Frisk reached in and grabbed an apple, and nearly closed the door before noticing the bag of Popato Chisps that was still in there.

Or, rather, the bag that was in there _again._ This bag was newer than the other one was; the packaging was slightly different as well. She narrowed her eyes and closed the door, before taking a bite out of her apple. She walked into the living room, where Alphys was watching an old human workout tape from the 90s, following along to the instructor's words.

"Yeah! Alright! You got it! Work it out!"

Alphys looked over at Frisk and smiled. She paused the tape and bent over, panting heavily. "Oh… Hey… Frisk…" She grabbed her water bottle and started chugging. "Ah. What's up?"

"Why are we still buying chips?" Frisk asked.

"Excuse me?" Alphys seemed confused.

"I don't eat them, and I never see you eat them, either," Frisk reasoned. "So that means that we're just throwing them away. Isn't that sort of a waste?" She thought about it for a second. "And also, why are we refrigerating them? That's really weird?"

Alphys chuckled. "Oh, Frisk. Just because I'm dieting doesn't mean I can't enjoy myself a little bit every now and again."

"Isn't that cheating?"

"Frisk, EVERYONE cheats on their diets SOMETIMES." She took another sip of her water. "It's just one of those things people do. And look, despite that, I even lost a couple of pounds already!"

Frisk looked up and down Alphys' body. "You have?" she asked skeptically.

Alphys glared. "Okay, so a two-pound difference isn't immediately noticeable. The point is that this diet is working, so cheating just a little bit isn't HURTING me." She glanced at the clock, and her eyes widened. "Uh, speaking of which, I think I'm going to go cheat right now."

"Is that something you can just decide to do?" Frisk asked, following Alphys as she walked to the kitchen. "I thought it was, like, an impulse thing, or something along those lines." Alphys grabbed the bag of chips and walked back into the main lab, which was a lot different now. The fridge that was in here had been moved back into the kitchen where it belonged, the computer desk had been noticeably cleaned up (Alphys even managed to find a second monitor at the dump), the aforementioned garden was placed in the center of the room, with new warm lights overhead, and the large screen which previously contained surveillance footage of wherever Frisk happened to be at any given moment now contained surveillance footage of the area around the lab. Alphys walked towards her bathroom. "Wait, where are you taking those?" Frisk asked.

Alphys froze. "Uh…" she stammered for a moment. "T-to the… Bathroom?"

Frisk tilted her head. "You're going to take food into the bathroom?"

Alphys' eyes darted back and forth. "Yes."

"Also, how come we have to use separate bathrooms?" Frisk asked. "I don't see the point in having two bathrooms just to accommodate me."

Alphys again avoided eye contact. "Yes." She ran into the bathroom and the door closed behind her.

Frisk sighed. Alphys was weird. She turned around and left the lab, deciding to go for a walk. Feeling the heat of the magma around her, she started walking in the direction of Waterfall, where she would trade heat for humidity and eventually end up in Snowdin, which was no longer off-limits to her now that Sans wasn't quite as dangerous to be around.

She had been in the Underground three weeks now. Two of those weeks had been spent living with Alphys. She finally felt like she had a place to call home and, yet, somehow, she didn't feel… whole. She knew why, of course. Looking around, Frisk saw that every monster had a purpose. Whether they were running a store like Gerson or Temmie, patrolling the Underground like the dogs, or cleaning the filth like Woshua, every monster had something that they were good at or a service they provided. Even Mettaton, who Frisk previously thought was suffering from a case of Chuck Cunningham Syndrome after their battle, had been out entertaining the monsters of the Underground.

Meanwhile, Frisk was just sort of… there. Or she felt like that was the case, anyway. In the three weeks she'd been here, she didn't really feel like she'd contributed to Underground society in any helpful way.

 _Well, hey, look on the bright side. In the last timeline you helped them with their crowding problem!_

...Frisk guessed that was true. Regardless, she wanted to help them in a way that actually _helped_ them. Granted, Frisk acknowledged that perhaps most monsters didn't WANT her help, and she wouldn't exactly blame them for that. Humans _sucked_. But that didn't stop her from wanting to help.

 _Come on, Frisk, relax a little bit,_ Chara said. _You don't exactly have to be the patron saint of the Underground. Just don't be a prick and you'll be fine._

 _I know,_ responded Frisk, _but all I've really done is sit around. I want to help SOMEBODY._ Chara took control of Frisk's body… Just to roll her eyes. He then rescinded control immediately. _Stop doing that._

 _Didn't you help Undyne with her whole "murder guilt" thing?_

 _I guess… But now she doesn't have a job!_

 _Oh, she'll live. Hey, didn't you help Papyrus with his whole "zero friends" thing?_

 _He had Undyne and Sans before._ Frisk put her hand on her other arm and looked down at the floor. Chara groaned, and the two were silent for a while before they finally ended up in Snowdin.

 _Friendly faces everywhere,_ commented Chara. Frisk glanced over at the skelebros' house. _Well, almost everywhere._

 _Be nice to Sans._

 _I am incapable._

Frisk rolled her eyes before overhearing a conversation Papyrus and Undyne were having nearby. Undyne was wearing a new outfit, which looked to be much warmer than what she was wearing before; this new outfit consisted of a turtleneck and a black leather jacket.

"So as I was saying about your crippling inability to get your feelings across in an appropriate matter, Undyne," Papyrus began before noticing that Frisk was nearby. "Human! Good day! I was just talking to Undyne about how she keeps writing letters and then tearing them up because she's bad at expressing herself!"

"OH MY GOD!" yelled Undyne. "That's not what's going on! I'm REVISING my letters because all of the other letters are just DRAFTS."

"Wowie!" exclaimed Papyrus. "I didn't know that the revision process entailed completely re-writing the work!"

"It can!" Undyne replied dejectedly.

"I'm learning new things every day!"

"Anyway, kid, what's up?" Undyne asked.

"Just trying to find ways to make myself useful," responded Frisk. "I'm sort of tired of sitting around on my caboose all day waiting for things to happen. I want to _help_ people, but I can't do that if I'm just sitting around, you know?" Frisk crossed her arms. "I'm sort of just hoping I come across a cat stuck in a tree at this point."

Undyne grinned. "Hey! I know how you can make yourself useful!" She produced a sealed envelope from her coat pocket. "This is a very important letter. I need you to deliver it to Alphys ASAP."

Frisk smiled. "Oh, is this a love letter?" she asked as she reached for it. Undyne pulled it away, however.

"What?! No! W-why would it be a…" Undyne broke down into a stammering fit. She even sounded like Alphys now! "It's… I-I… It's a very professional letter about very professional matters!"

"Yeah!" said Papyrus. "Undyne goes on for, like, three paragraphs about how her soul is incomplete and only Alphys can make it whole! That's super professional!" Undyne glared. "Why, one of the doctor's specialties is soul research! If anybody can fix Undyne's soul, it would be her."

Frisk tilted her head. "Alphys did soul research? I didn't know about that." She glanced at Undyne, who just shrugged.

"We don't really talk about her work. Now, if you could deliver this letter—"

 _Say, Chara, didn't you say you were hoping I'd give you my soul?_

 _Uh, yeah?_

 _What's wrong with your old one?_

 _Shattered. Only this piece of me remains._

 _Wow. That sucks dude. How would you like a new one?_

 _Excuse me? What are you-oh. No. No no no no. Not a good idea._

 _Why not?_

Undyne tilted her head quizzically. "Uh, kid?"

 _Look, forget about me, okay?_ Chara said. _Giving me a soul would be a huge mistake._

 _How?_

 _So you know how I'm all pissed off and stuff all the time? Imagine exactly the same thing except now I've got a body to do stuff with._

 _Is it a good looking body?_

Chara was unamused. _You're hilarious._

 _So if we fixed your soul and somehow managed to extract it from me—assuming I am in fact carrying your busted old soul around—you'd get a new body with it?_

 _No, we would need a vessel to put the soul in, and my new body would be formed around that vessel. Stupid._ Chara paused for a moment. _But we are_ not _doing that._

"Human!" Papyrus yelled. "Have you fallen asleep while standing up?" He frowned. "My brother is such a bad influence on you!"

Frisk snapped out of her internal argument. "Uh, sorry guys. Yeah, I'll deliver the letter." She grabbed the envelope from Undyne's hand and read the address that was written on the back.

 _Alphys._

 _The lab._

 _Hotland, The Underground_

"And don't read any of it, OKAY?! Or I'll kick your butt?!" Undyne threatened. Frisk chuckled and put the letter in her pocket. "AND DON'T CRINKLE THE PAPER EITHER!"

 _Hey, I have an idea,_ Chara interjected.

 _What are you—oh,_ Frisk responded as Chara took control of her body. She didn't put up much of a fight, she figured she'd just yell at him later.

"Heyyyyy, Undyne!" Chara said, trying (and failing) to copy Frisk's mannerisms. "Why don't you come with me?"

"...what?"

"Well, I mean, how do you think Alphys would feel if you had a messenger boy—uh, girl—deliver this very personal letter?" Chara reasoned. "Why, it would come off as so very insincere! Don't you want to be there in person?" He smirked. "Unless you're chicken."

"WHAT?!" Undyne shouted, infuriated.

"Yeah, Undyne!" Papyrus encouraged. "I thought you were a fish! When did you become a chicken?" Chara realized that Papyrus was not goading her, but simply was confused as to whether or not Undyne was a literal chicken.

"I am NOT a chicken!" Undyne shouted, before grabbing the letter in one hand and Chara's body under her free arm. "I am going to DELIVER this letter and NOBODY is going to stop me!" She started marching towards Hotland. "Not even…" She slowed to a halt. "Myself." She stood in the snow for several seconds before regaining her resolve and marching forwards once again. "Yeah! This letter is getting delivered, and Alphys is gonna LIKE IT!" She stopped again. "Or maybe she'll hate it." This would continue for the entire trip.

 _Okay, I'll bite,_ began Frisk, once again in control of her own body. _Why did you do that?_ she asked.

 _Frisk, it's OBVIOUS that whatever Alphys' "dark secret" is, it's in that bathroom,_ Chara reasoned.

 _...Wait, really?_

 _So, if we can get Undyne to "inadvertently" walk in on whatever's going on in there, then there will be no secrets between them and they can work out their problems together!_ Chara sounded very proud of himself. _Aren't I clever?_

 _Oh, yeah, that might work,_ said Frisk. She then immediately realized everything that was wrong with this plan. _Chara, this is a terrible idea._

 _How so?_

During the discussion, they arrived in the lab. The bathroom door automatically opened for Undyne. She shrugged and walked in. "An elevator, huh? Must be a fancy bathroom."

 _Alphys needs to be able to spill her secrets on her own terms._ Frisk thought for a second. _Need I remind you that Undyne doesn't even know about resets yet? And neither of them are aware that you exist?_

 _They're KIND OF aware of me._

 _Yeah but they don't know EXACTLY what's going on here._

The elevator door opened. Suddenly, the room lost power. "Huh," Undyne said. "There goes my ride up." Nonetheless, she marched forward, Frisk and the letter still in tow. Frisk failed to notice that they were in a new place. "Huh. This… Is not a bathroom," Undyne said.

 _Look, Frisk, all I'm saying is this is a great opportunity for—_

"HOLY SHIT!" Undyne shouted as she dropped the letter and the kid and summoned a spear. Frisk landed with a thud and groaned.

"Ow. What the hell are we—" Frisk looked up and saw some… _thing_. It was a blob—an abomination. It looked like a monster, but it had been… Melted? And fused with other monsters? _Jesus Christ, I've never seen a monster like that._ Frisk looked up and saw that Undyne was just as shocked. _Did we take a wrong turn? This doesn't look like the lab…_ The creature lunged. Summoning all of her determination, and without thinking, Frisk LOADed.

"Human!" Papyrus yelled. "Have you fallen asleep while standing up?" He frowned. "My brother is such a bad influence on you!"

Frisk, disoriented from the sudden change in space as well as time, stumbled. She felt like she was going to vomit. "Ugh… Jesus…"

Undyne looked worried. "Are you okay?" Suddenly, her look of worry was replaced by a pained expression. "Aw, crap, I have a headache… Where did THAT come from?"

Frisk looked up. _Chara. What the HELL was that?_

 _You're asking me?_

Undyne grabbed her forehead and closed her eye. "Uh, Papyrus, I think I'm gonna go lie down for a bit," she said. "I have the worst headache all of a sudden." She glanced at the human. "You look like you're getting pretty sick. Don't worry about the letter, you can deliver it later. Ugh…" she groaned and walked into the house.

Papyrus glanced at Frisk. "I sure do hope I don't catch this bug that's apparently going around. Would you like to rest up a bit before you leave?"

"No, I'm… Fine, really. You should go check on Undyne."

"As you wish!" Papyrus turned around and entered the house. The second he was gone, Frisk ran into the trees and emptied the contents of her stomach.

 _Ew,_ complained Chara. _You really couldn't hold that in?_

 _Ugh. Okay. I feel better now._

 _Hey, did you notice how Undyne felt the effects of that reset too?_

 _Yeah. I think it's because of how close we were to each other,_ reasoned Frisk. _Or something. By the way, don't ever do that again._

 _So, are we gonna ask Alphys about what we saw in there, or no?_ Chara asked.

 _Maybe?_ Frisk sounded very unsure of herself. _I still feel like she should tell us in her own time._

 _Ugh, fine._

Meanwhile, in the house, Undyne was lying on the couch, an ice pack on her head. Papyrus had gone to the shop to find something with healing properties in hopes that the headaches would go away quicker, and Sans was nowhere to be seen, so she was alone. She stared blankly at the TV. Undyne _hated_ being this lazy, but the splitting headache stopped her from doing much of anything until it subsided. She just didn't know WHY it happened. One moment, she was fine, the next…

She closed her eye to try and sleep off the pain. Immediately, she was assaulted with a disturbing mental image. She was in a dark room, similar to Alphys' lab and yet somehow dirtier. Dust—the other kind, thankfully—covered the room. Mold could be seen on the walls. Nearby were computer screens that looked like they hadn't seen use in years, and just ahead, an elevator with no power. Directly in front of her was… She didn't know what. It wasn't a monster, that was for sure. It looked as if somebody had melted together pieces of multiple monsters to create some… abomination of nature.

She pushed the thought out of her mind—probably some kind of messed up fever dream cooked up by her headache-afflicted mind—but it was immediately replaced by an even more disturbing image.

 _Undyne observed the scene as if she were an outside viewer. It felt like a weird mixture between a dream, a memory, and reality. She could see herself, full-clad in armor, carrying a spear, and perched atop a narrow bridge which sat above a ravine. Just across from her was a human. At first, she thought she was once again having that same nightmare, as she still sometimes did even now, but she noticed that something was off. There was one human, not two. She then realized that this human was Frisk. There was something… off about her, however. She was doing that red-eyed glare again. All that she could see in the human's eyes was hatred._

 _They weren't alone. Undyne saw that, behind her doppelgänger, Monster Kid sat, having fallen over—not into the ravine, thank god—and stared in horror up at the warrior in front of him. Undyne looked at herself again and gasped. A large split in her armor had been made, and behind that a massive gash in her flesh could be seen, blood seeping from it. The other Undyne held on to her wound to stop the blood flow as best she could, to no avail—her gauntlets were stained._

" _Undyne…" the kid began, tears in his eyes. "You're… You're hurt."_

" _Hurt?" Undyne gave a pained laugh. "It's nothing." She smiled at the kid. "Next time, listen when I tell you to leave, okay?"_

" _Undyne… I…"_

" _I'll take care of this!" Undyne said, although it didn't seem like she believed it. "Get out of here!" she exclaimed. The kid left, reluctantly. Once he was gone, Undyne stumbled and looked into the ravine below. "Heh," she chuckled. "'It's nothing'... No… Somehow, with just one hit…" The real Undyne looked at Frisk. She had done this? No, she hadn't._ This is just a headache dream _, she kept telling herself. "I'm already… Already… D-damn it…" Dream Undyne looked like she was using all of her strength just to stand up, and she wasn't even doing a very good job at that. "Papyrus… Alphys… Asgore," she lamented. "Just like that, I… I've failed you…" Why did she feel like she actually said all of this, as if she were recalling a memory?_

" _I've heard of fish half price," Not-Frisk sneered, "but this is ridiculous!"_

Was that a pun? _the real Undyne thought, disgusted that even in her nightmares she was assaulted by these lame-ass excuses for comedy. It was then that she noticed that her injuries were so severe that she actually appeared to be falling in half._

 _Doppelgänger Undyne began to turn to dust. Somehow, though, she was able to hold on to her physical form for just a while longer. "No," she said in defiance. "My body… It feels like it's splitting apart."_

" _It is," Not-Frisk said. "Straight-up."_

" _Like any instant, I'll scatter into a million pieces."_

" _And make a mess all over this perfectly good bridge! Oh, who will clean it up?" Not-Frisk smiled. "Certainly not Woshua."_

" _But," Undyne said, ignoring the awful human in front of her, "deep, deep in my soul, there's a burning feeling I can't describe."_

" _It's called 'pain'. You're feeling it because you are dying." Not-Frisk yawned. "Speaking of which, can you die already? This is taking longer than I would like."_

" _A burning feeling that WON'T let me die."_

" _What?"_

" _This isn't just about monsters anymore, is it? If you get past me, you'll… You'll destroy them all, won't you? Monsters… Humans… Everyone."_

" _You caught me. And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling monsters!" Not-Frisk feigned frustration._

" _Everyone's hopes," Undyne continued. "Everyone's dreams. Vanquished in an instant." She smiled. "But I WON'T let you do that." She looked up at human with a determined look in her eye. "Right now, everyone in the world… I can feel their hearts beating as one!"_

" _Ew."_

" _And we all have ONE goal! To defeat YOU!"_

 _Not-Frisk chuckled. "Listen, that's something the United Nations can worry about once I'm topside. Don't you worry, I'm sure SOMEBODY will try to stop me eventually. Somebody who's less dead." She shrugged. "Who knows, maybe my actions will force NATO and the Soviets to join forces in order to stop me." She looked up in thought for a second. "Assuming NATO and the Soviets are still around. It's been a while."_

" _Human… No… WHATEVER you are—"_

" _Ouch."_

" _For the sake of the whole world…" Undyne grinned even wider, her eye wide with excitement. "I, UNDYNE, will strike you down!"_

" _Right, but there's the whole 'currently dying' thing standing in your—what the hell are you doing?" A bright glow began to envelope Dream Undyne. The real Undyne couldn't believe what she was seeing. Soon, Undyne's mangled body was replaced with a new one. Her armor was stronger, her hair was like lightning, and her eyepatch was gone entirely. In its place, a beam of pure determination shot out._

" _You're gonna have to try a little harder than THAT," Undyne smirked._

 _Not-Frisk looked shocked at first, but then she grinned and crouched into a defensive stance. "Finally, a challenge," she said, and the battle began._

Undyne awoke in a sweat, gasping for air. She frantically looked around and saw that she was still in Papyrus' living room. A blanket had been carefully placed over her, and on the nearby table was a cinnamon bunny, presumably to help her with her headache, which had mostly subsided. Also on the table was a glass of water, which she grabbed and gulped down. After putting the glass down and gasping for air once again, she sat up and noticed that the room was totally dark. She tried to make out the time on the clock. It looked like… 12:40. AM, she assumed.

The next thing she noticed was that she was still dressed in her coat, turtleneck, pants, and even boots. No wonder she was sweating (although the intense dream certainly didn't help). Papyrus, being the sweet goofball he is, probably didn't want to intrude on her privacy, but he could have at LEAST removed the coat and the boots.

"Jeez… What was that all about?" she asked herself. That nightmare had been so strange. It was more real, and yet, more distant, than any dream she'd ever had. A scattered dream that's like a far off memory… Why did she have it? She knew, without a doubt in her mind, that Frisk would never intentionally hurt her. And she didn't want to hurt Frisk either. So why was a violent confrontation between the two in her mind? Why was she thinking about that?

Wanting to shake the thought away, she decided to busy herself, first by getting more comfortable. She slipped off her boots and coat and left them by the door. She then removed her turtleneck, leaving only a tank top below, and switched to more comfortable pants that she could actually comfortably sleep in. Finally, she untied her ponytail and let her hair flow out; it always felt more natural, sleeping like this. She walked into the kitchen and splashed water on her face, as if to remove any lingering images of the dream from her eye. When she was satisfied, she turned off the water and went back to the couch to lay back down.

As she began to drift comfortably into slumber, Undyne decided that nobody had to know about this particular nightmare. After all, that's all it was; a figment of her imagination.

Nothing more.


	7. Chapter 7: The One With The Poop Joke

**A/N: I'm not gonna beat around the bush; there's a poop joke in here. I'm sorry. It's not even subtle.**

 **The next two chapters are already written too. Gonna space them out between now and Wednesday. Those chapters don't have poop jokes.**

* * *

Papyrus marched down the snow-covered pathway, checking on his traps as he went along. When Undyne told him that she would be stepping down from the Royal Guard, he knew this was the perfect opportunity to show the king what he was made of. Who better a candidate to replace Undyne than the Great Papyrus?

Of course, he was unsure as to what exactly he'd do to prove his worth. It was likely that another human would not fall down for a while, and even if they did, Papyrus wasn't sure if he even still wanted to capture humans. After Undyne confided in him, he realized that she didn't want to capture humans anymore either. The dogs' resolve was beginning to change, too. Everyone's was. Once the revelation was made that a human had been living among them for nearly four weeks, and once they found out she was nicer than some of the monsters were, everybody began to have second thoughts about this whole "human hunting" thing.

Town meetings were held in secret. Nobody knew what to do about this. Some of the older monsters adamantly wanted to turn the human over to the king. The younger ones didn't. In the end, several votes were held. It was decided that the human would be allowed to stay in the Underground, so long as she didn't cause trouble.

This, of course, raised the question of what to do about any future visitors. Should they be given the same freedoms? This was a debate that would go on for quite a while. There was no end in sight, which was just fine, as nobody believed that another human would fall down for at least a few more years.

This was a weird month, Papyrus decided. It was then that he noticed a bit of gold on the mostly white ground in front of him. Smiling, he crouched down and greeted his friend. "Flowey! How are you this fine morning?"

Flowey looked startled. He turned around and stared up at Papyrus. "Oh. Howdy, Papyrus." He seemed very low-energy today. "I'm fine, I'm just… thinking about something."

Papyrus sat down in front of the flower. "Thinking about what, might I ask?"

"Everything's changing, Papyrus. Things were the same for so long. Day after day, year after year, nothing changed." He sighed. "I sort of knew what to expect from everyone. I knew what they'd say if I did this. How they'd react if I said this. Now, nothing. I can't predict anything anymore because all of the variables are different." He looked up at Papyrus, who was staring blankly. "You don't understand a word of what I'm saying, do you?"

"Flowey, is change really so bad?"

"No! This is the most interesting that things have been in a while! It's just…" He sighed again. "I'm so used to knowing everything. Now I'm clueless again." Flowey tilted his head. "How do you do it?"

Papyrus was confused. "How do I do what?"

"How do you go on, knowing that you don't know anything?"

Papyrus tried to understand the question. "I know how to cook spaghetti."

"Hardly."

"You know, Flowey, I may not know a lot," Papyrus explained, "but I do know that not knowing a lot is an exciting thing. It means you have more to learn!" He leaned in closer. "For example, did you know that it takes about a year to animate a single 22-minute episode of all of those cartoons that the humans watch?"

"I… did not know that."

"Now you do! Wasn't that fun, learning something new?"

"I don't really have fun."

"No fun? What? That's preposterous!"

"It's kind of hard when you don't feel anything." Flowey's eyes widened as he realized that he just said something that he definitely shouldn't have said. "Uh, what I mean to say is, I don't get to really do fun things that often." _How the hell did I slip up that badly? That's never happened before._

"That's a shame. I know! You should come meet my friends—"

"NO!" Flowey snarled, his face involuntarily transforming into something far scarier. He caught himself and tried to make himself appear as innocent as possible. "Uh, golly Papyrus, that's mighty kind of you, but…" He looked for an excuse. A realization began to dawn on him, however. "Have we… Had this conversation before? This all feels familiar."

"Nope!" Papyrus stood up. "Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but I have to keep checking my traps. You should stop by Snowdin sometime and meet my friends! One of them is a human!"

"I'll be sure to check in."

Papyrus left, and Flowey was left to his own devices.

 _We definitely had that conversation before,_ he thought. Chara must have loaded a save. But why wasn't he immediately made aware? It used to be that Flowey could feel resets as they happened, a direct result of his own tampering with the timeline. The implications of not being able to remember a reset were huge. Had… Had the timeline really strayed that far from what it was supposed to be? Was his power so diminished that even he was susceptible to the mind-altering factors of time manipulation?

... _the Underground kind of sucks now,_ Flowey thought. _Chara better do something interesting soon._

Speaking of which, Flowey had an old friend to spy on.

* * *

Frisk was sitting at a desk which had been set up for her, drawing whatever came to her—or Chara's—mind. Alphys was at her own desk, running some sort of program at her computer and taking notes. Besides the occasional pencil scratch or mouse click, as well as the persistent noise of the escalators, the room was silent.

 _Hey, Frisk, I have an idea,_ said Chara.

 _What's up?_

 _Can I take control of your right hand real quick? I wanna draw something._

 _Alright._ Frisk partially relinquished control of her body to Chara, who moved the pencil from her left hand to her right. Frisk found out early on that, while she was left-handed, Chara was right-handed. Chara began sketching something on the paper. His style was far more cartoony than Frisk's—she liked realism.

 _I wanted to be an animator when I grew up,_ explained Chara. _I wanted to work at Disney._ He continued to draw the figure on the page. Frisk realized he was drawing a person. When he was done, he put the pencil down and gave Frisk her arm back. _That's me. It's what I looked like before I died._

Frisk admired the figure in the picture. Even with Chara's cartoony style, she could imagine what he must have looked like. _We look pretty similar,_ she admitted. _Sex aside, I think people would have mixed us up if we were around at the same time._

 _People already mix us up,_ he chuckled.

 _They wouldn't if you would stop using my mouth to say something snide._

"I'm Frisk and I like dirty diapers," said Chara out loud, using Frisk's mouth. Alphys glanced over at Frisk.

"Excuse me?"

"Uh, I said I'd like thirty vipers," Frisk explained. "Snakes are cool."

Alphys just stared. "That is not what you said." They stared at each other before Alphys decided to disregard whatever it was Frisk said and returned to her work.

Chara mentally laughed. Hard. _That was great._

 _Go to hell,_ Frisk said, shaking her head and switching the pencil back to her left hand. In spite of this, she was smiling.

 _I tried, but they didn't want me so they sent me back._

Frisk heard the door open. She turned to see that Undyne had walked in.

"Sup nerds," she said as coolly as possible.

Alphys smiled. "H-hey Undyne!" she said, slightly more confident than she would have been last month, but still pretty nervous-sounding. "What brings you around here?"

"Are you kidding? Two of my favorite people live here!" she exclaimed. That was something she said anytime she came into the lab, now. Alphys still wasn't used to it. She tried to keep it cool, but Frisk could tell she was internally screaming. "I just wanted to check in, see how you guys… Were…" she drifted off, staring at the bathroom door. "Uh…"

Alphys tilted her head. "Is something wrong?" This drew Frisk's attention. She turned her head and watched Undyne, then stared at the bathroom door. Her eyes widened. She looked back at Alphys, who didn't seem to understand what was going on.

"Uh… Yeah! Everything's… Everything's fine," Undyne said, unsure of herself. "I'm not sure why, I just sort of spaced out for a second there." She glanced over at Frisk. "What are you up to?"

she said, grinning as she marched over. "Hmm. Art. Yeah, I gave that a shot when I was a kid. Now I'm permanently banned from ever entering Snowdin's library again!" She chuckled. "Good times. Good…" she looked back down at Frisk's drawing. "Hey, wait, I thought you were right-handed."

Frisk glanced down at her hands. "Uh, no? Pretty sure I've always been left-handed."

"Hmm…" Undyne shrugged. "I don't know why I thought otherwise." She looked over at Alphys. "What are YOU up to?" she asked as she walked over.

While Alphys explained what she was doing (upgrading Mettaton's firmware to improve his acting skills), Frisk went back to talking to Chara. _Chara, did you see the way she looked at the bathroom door?_ she asked.

 _Yeah. It was almost like some part of her remembered that there's something else behind there._

 _Which means…_

 _...crap._

 _That's just residual stuff from loading so close to her,_ Frisk assured herself. _...right?_

 _She also was confused on which hand was your dominant._

 _So?_

 _Frisk, do you remember when we fought her in the last timeline? And you asked me to take over for a few hours because you were so exhausted?_

 _You use your right hand to fight._

 _Bingo._

Frisk didn't like where this was going. _You don't think…_

 _I don't think she actually has any memories of the last timeline,_ Chara said. _...or if she does, they're very faint and indistinguishable from dreams._ A loud laugh came from Undyne at a joke either she or Alphys told. Alphys' laugh was much more nervous sounding. _...regardless, I think we need to be more careful. If those memories are there, we don't want to trigger them before the time is right._

 _Is there ever a right time to tell somebody you killed her and all of her friends in an alternate universe?_

 _Hey, YOU'RE the one who wanted to tell her everything._

 _I know!_ Frisk sighed. _It's just… Not right now. Not like this._

 _Calm down, will you? Everything is going to be fine. She's not going to figure anything out on her own, we have all the time in the world to—_

"Say, Alphys, what's in the bathroom?" Undyne asked.

 _Crap._

"...bathroom stuff?" Alphys responded. "What do you mean?"

Undyne scratched her neck. "Well, I mean, most of our energy is magic? Only humans really use toilets and I saw that the kid has her own somewhere else in the lab."

Alphys chuckled and pushed her glasses in. "Undyne, I eat a LOT of human food. Potato chips, instant noodles, Bart Simpson cereal… is it good for me? No, but I do it anyway." She gestured to the bathroom. "Ergo, I need a human bathroom to deal with the… Aftermath."

Frisk leaned back in her chair. _Clever._

Undyne just stared. "But you're on a diet. I've SEEN you on this diet. You're cutting out human foods."

Alphys froze. "I've… been… cheating," she said finally.

 _Are we really having a discussion about whether or not Alphys shits?_ Chara asked, already bored with the subject matter.

Undyne stared suspiciously at the bathroom door. "Alright." She was dropping it. This surprised Frisk.

 _Alright, maybe today won't suck after all—_

"Hey, just out of curiosity, what do you guys know about human funerals?" Undyne asked abruptly.

Alphys was caught by surprise. "E-excuse me?"

"Where did that come from?" Frisk asked.

"Well, I've just been thinking," Undyne began. "Humans, like, get buried when they die, right? It's some kind of traditional thing?" She shook her head. "All those humans whose souls got taken, they never received burials."

"Did they not?" Frisk asked.

Alphys shook her head. "Of course they wouldn't have. Asgore has no respect for human customs."

 _The Asgore I knew did,_ Chara interjected.

Undyne continued. "So, then I thought, 'you know what would be a great way to make up for the crappy things I did? Putting those kids at peace.' I happen to know that Asgore keeps the humans in coffins in his basement."

Alphys seemed shocked by this statement. "I-in his-?!" She covered her mouth in disgust. "That's terrible. And sick."

"He keeps me WHERE?!" Chara asked out loud in genuine shock. Frisk took back control immediately and smacked her forehead in frustration. "I mean, he was GOING to keep me where?"

Undyne nodded. "Yeah. I doubt they would have appreciated the crappy send-off they were given." She smacked her fist into her open palm and grinned. "Those humans died as warriors, and they deserve a warrior's celebration. I'm gonna give it to them."

Alphys blinked. "How are you going to do that?"

A determined look spread across Undyne's face, which was lowered so that a terrifying shadow was cast by the lights above. This was a look that was always immediately followed by a very bad idea. "We're going on a heist."

Alphys and Frisk just stared at her in disbelief. "You want to break into the castle," Alphys said incredulously.

"Of COURSE not," Undyne said, waving a hand dismissively as if Alphys was the one who just said something completely nonsensical. "The castle is a public place. I want to smuggle six coffins OUT of the castle."

"Seven!" Chara shouted in disbelief. "Ooh, I'm fired up now," he said, pacing around the room in anger. Frisk figured she'd let him have this moment. Everybody needs to vent. "You know, that king's a real asshat!"

Alphys nodded. "I agree… Frisk…" She narrowed her eyes at 'Frisk'. She shook her head. "But Undyne, we can't just steal things from my boss's home!"

"Well, he ain't my boss," Undyne said, marching to the other side of the lab, where the exit was. "You guys can join me or not, I'm doing this either way." She gestured to Alphys and Frisk (who was still under Chara's control, fuming and pacing the room) in an inviting manner.

"Oh, you're damn right I'm joining," Chara said as he marched to the exit.

 _Man, you're really fired up, huh?_ Frisk asked. _You know what, if you want to borrow my body for the duration of this "heist", by all means. It seems like you've got some business to take care of._ She paused. _Just be careful with it, please. Try not to alert Undyne to your presence more than you already have. And for god's sake, don't kill anyone._

 _Oh, this is going to be so cathartic,_ Chara responded.

 _I'm sure._

Chara and Undyne stood at the exit. Undyne glanced at Alphys. "Al. You comin'?"

Alphys glanced nervously at them. Conflicted, her eyes darted from side to side as if she were listening to the two sides of her conscience argue as to what she should do. Finally, she sighed and walked over to them. "What's the plan?"

Undyne grinned. "No plan. We're just gonna wing it."

 _That's my favorite kind of plan!_ Frisk told Chara.

She marched out of the lab. Chara and Alphys stared incredulously, then looked at each other.

"No plan? None at all? She's going to get us killed," Chara said.

Alphys laughed nervously. "I mean, that's what saves are for, right Frisk?" She continued to laugh nervously as she walked out the door, although she didn't seem to find the situation funny.

Chara was the last one in the lab. He puffed up his chest and assumed a very masculine stance, in spite of the feminine body he now occupied.

 _Very badass,_ Frisk said sarcastically. With Chara in control, they stepped out the door.


	8. Chapter 8: Judgement, Wave 1

**A/N: New cartoon out on Wednesday. Dunno how I'm gonna share it here, I don't think I can paste links. In the meantime my YouTube channel is linked in my bio if you wanna check that out?**

* * *

The fish monster's footsteps echoed as she traversed the final corridor of the CORE, towards the elevator which would allow her to finally leave Hotland and enter the king's castle, whereupon she and her companions would grab as many of the coffins he kept in the basement as they could and book it. Somehow. Undyne hadn't exactly worked out all of the details yet, but just kind of winging it had worked wonders for her thus far, so she was sure she would find a way. She had to. The thought of giving these humans a proper burial and finally atoning for her past sins filled her with DETERMINATION.

Before they reached the door, Undyne stopped in her tracks. Her companions stopped as well.

"I-is something wrong?" Alphys asked.

"No, it's just…" Undyne turned around to face her friends.

 _I'm going to take over for a second,_ Frisk told Chara. "Undyne, is everything alright?" she asked.

"I just wanted to thank you guys for coming to do this with me," Undyne said. "I know that I keep going back to these dumb mistakes I made two years ago. You're probably tired of it. I need to get over it, it happened in the past and there's nothing I can do to fix it. But…" She glanced over at the elevator. "I can't get over it until we do this." Undyne crossed her arms and leaned up against the wall. "I can't ever undo my mistakes. I won't ever be able to give those kids the lives they deserve to live. I can't even return their souls to them, Asgore has those locked up good. But I sure as hell can give them the honor they deserve to be given."

"Of course," Frisk nodded. "I'm proud of you, Undyne."

Alphys gave a determined nod as well. "Yeah! Y-you've grown a lot in the last month." She scratched the back of her neck nervously and chuckled. "I wish the same could be said about me. But we're getting off track." Alphys smiled and smacked her fist into an open hand. "Let's get in there and give those humans the memorial they deserve."

The trio nodded and marched into the elevator, excited to get the show on the road. The show had to wait, unfortunately, as this was a really, really long elevator ride.

"So, uh, how are we gonna do this?" Frisk asked.

Undyne glanced at her, then stared back at the elevator door. "What do you mean?"

"Well, there are seven coffins and three of us." She looked over at Undyne. "I imagine you can probably carry a couple, but Alphys and I will have to team up just to carry one." She thought some more. "We're also going to have to be really careful to not disturb the corpses. The coffins need to be handled with as much care as possible."

Undyne nodded. "We're going to be moving slowly and carefully and respectfully. And we're going to make multiple trips."

Alphys sighed. "This is risky."

"I know," Undyne said. "I don't have much to lose, but… You could lose your job if you're caught… Or worse," she added while glancing at Frisk. "I won't blame you two if you decide to back out."

"No way!" Alphys protested. "We're with you til the end!" She glanced at Frisk. "Plus, something tells me we're going to be fine." Frisk pulled out her phone and typed a message. Alphys' phone vibrated.

 _This is the first run. Things might totally go wrong._

Alphys typed out a very deep response. _k._ "Alright. We can do this."

Undyne smiled. "Thanks." The elevator doors opened and the trio stepped out into New Home.

 _Alright Chara, you can take over._ Frisk allowed her consciousness to take a backseat to Chara who, thankfully, had calmed down considerably. Chara stumbled while he tried to wrestle control of the body he shared, but soon got back on his feet.

Alphys turned in concern. "Are you okay, Frisk?" she asked. She noticed that Frisk's pupils once again had a slightly red glow to them.

"I'm fine, thanks," Chara responded. "Let's just keep moving." He moved ahead of Alphys and Undyne, who just looked at each other.

Upon entering the next room, Chara approached the ledge and stared at the city in the distance. Even all of these years later, he still couldn't believe the monsters fit all of this underground. He now knew that the monsters could BARELY fit all of this underground. He wanted to do something to help, but the last time he tried…

 _Hey,_ Frisk interrupted his train of thought. _Mistakes were made._

 _My mistakes can't be fixed._

 _But they can be learned from._

Alphys and Undyne approached the ledge. "Kid, is everything alright?" Undyne asked.

Chara nodded. "I'm just thinking about things. You guys don't deserve to be trapped down here. You only need one more soul, and…"

Undyne put a hand on Chara's shoulder. Chara looked up to see Undyne smiling. "I need you to stop right there. We'll find another way, Frisk." Chara looked away upon being called 'Frisk'. He didn't deserve that name. "Besides, if the only way up to the surface involves losing a friend like you, I don't want to go to the surface." Alphys simply nodded. Chara broke away and started walking again. Undyne sighed and followed.

Soon, they approached Asgore's home. "Hope nobody's home," Alphys said, nervously. "I mean, I'm sure we're fine," she said while again glancing at 'Frisk,' who seemed not to notice. She took that to mean that either nothing was going to go wrong, or Frisk simply still didn't know whether or not anything was going to go wrong.

The trio stepped inside and looked around. Nobody was home. "The King's probably in the garden," Undyne said. "Where we're going is just past the garden. We should be golden." They approached the stairs, only to notice that a chain blocked them from entering, two padlocks adorning it. "Agh, dammit, Asgore. What's the point in locking the doors if you're just gonna write down where the keys are?" She glanced at the note and noticed that, unlike usual, it was not English. "I don't speak this weird hands language, Asgore!" she complained, totally forgetting her previous complaint. "Write your notes in a language that makes sense!"

Chara blinked. "Hands?"

Alphys pushed her glasses in. "Let me see it."

"You can read this?" Undyne asked.

"Just a little bit," Alphys replied. "Th-the old Royal Scientist preferred to write this way, so I had to learn enough to… To get the gist of what he was trying to say."

"But why would Asgore write this way?"

"Paranoia, maybe," Alphys said. "This note says 'return to the old path', or… Something like that." She sighed. "He clearly doesn't want visitors."

Undyne seemed surprised. "What?! He LOVES visitors! Why doesn't he want visitors?"

Alphys shrugged. "His most trusted guard quits, his Royal Scientist just stops sending reports of her work, there's been no word to him of the human that he was told about weeks ago, none of his other guards are reporting to him…" She crossed her arms. "He probably thinks something's gone horribly wrong."

Undyne narrowed her eye. "And he hasn't come out to check on us."

"He's too scared," Chara said, surprising the other two. "Asgore's a coward. He doesn't want to face his people if they're suffering under his leadership." He sighed. "He keeps the keys in the hallway and the kitchen." Chara then turned and walked toward the hallway, leaving the other two alone.

"How did you…?" Undyne began to ask, but the child was already gone. She looked towards Alphys for answers.

"Uh, beats me," she replied.

Undyne looked back at the note, where she noticed something odd. "Hey, wait a minute, did one of you guys switch the note?"

"Huh?"

"It's in English now."

 _Howdy! I'm in the garden. If you have anything you need to get off your chest, please don't hesitate to come. The keys are in the kitchen and the hallway._

Alphys' eyes widened. "What?" She flipped the note around; there was nothing on the other side.

"You sure got me good, Al!" Undyne said, grinning. "For a second there, I thought something was really wrong with the king. How'd you swap the note so fast?"

Alphys stammered. "I… I-I…"

Undyne stretched her arms and started heading in the other direction. "Anyway, I'm gonna go get that other key," she said, and marched off.

Alphys kept staring at the note. "...what?"

* * *

The trio regrouped a moment later and continued onward. Alphys convinced herself that Undyne was just pranking her, although Undyne seemed convinced that the reverse was true. Soon, they reached a long hallway adorned with large marble pillars on either side. Golden light bathed the room through the large stained glass windows on the left side of the hallway, the king's seal on each and every window.

"Th-this room sure is pretty," Alphys said, admiring the decorations. She looked over at Frisk, who seemed uncomfortable with their setting. "Are you okay?"

 _Chara, can I talk?_ Chara agreed, and Frisk sighed. "This room…" She looked over at Undyne to make sure she wasn't listening. "This room is where I fought Sans."

Alphys frowned. "W-well you don't have anything to worry about on that front," she responded.

"I know, it's just…" Frisk blinked slowly. "Bad memories."

Alphys put her hand on Frisk's shoulder. "Everything's going to be fine." As she removed her hand, she noticed that her arm's movements were far weightier than normal. It was also taking slightly more effort to walk, and Alphys soul felt… Oh no.

Alphys looked over at Undyne and Frisk, who were similarly walking with more effort. Undyne grunted. "Ugh, is it just me, or is gravity different?"

Alphys' eyes widened. "Our souls are blue," she said, alarmed. "Everybody, we need to get out of—" she was cut off, as she and Frisk were shoved slightly backwards by an invisible force. Undyne turned around in concern, but a wall of magical bones rose, blocking the two parties from reaching each other.

"Sorry. I can only do one of you guys at a time," an annoyingly low voice said humorously. "I don't mean to be _marrow minded,_ but this line of work is exhausting."

Undyne turned back around and glared, adopting a defensive stance as she did so. Several feet in front of her was Sans, grinning as always. "Oh, how did I know you would be in my way?" she rhetorically asked through gritted teeth. "What gives, Sans? I thought we were cool!"

"I'm pretty cool, but…" Sans winked. "You've been spending a lot of time in Hotland." He glanced out the window. "Plus, you seem pretty steamed right now."

"This isn't—" Undyne clenched her fists before closing her eye. She lowered her arms and took a deep breath. "Alright. I'm calm. This is calm Undyne speaking." She opened her eye, though she was still glaring. "What do you want, Sans?"

Alphys leaned over and whispered to Frisk. "Now's a pretty good time to do the time warp thing, Frisk." Frisk shook her head. "No? What do you mean, no?"

"Let's see how this plays out," Frisk responded.

Sans observed Undyne. "The look on your face says that this is the first time this has happened to you." He shrugged. "Now, one could argue that, unlike _some_ people," he glanced at Frisk before looking back at Undyne, "you wouldn't remember if it happened before, but something else is telling me that you'd have at least a vague sense of having done this before." Sans scratched at his skull. "The look on your face ALSO says that you're here on a very important mission; redemption." He chuckled. "That raises a very important question; do you DESERVE redemption? You are LV 3, my friend, and nobody gets to LV 3 on accident."

Undyne's eye darted around the room. "I…" She sighed in defeat and closed her eye. "You're right. What I did was no accident." She reopened her eye and gave Sans a determined look. "But it WAS a mistake. A mistake that I will NEVER be able to completely undo, but dammit, I'm going to try my hardest to make things better."

Sans nodded. "What matters is that you were honest with yourself. So you made a couple of really big mistakes. Those mistakes haunt you. That's a surefire sign that you're, at the very least, not a terrible person. But I think you might even be more than 'not a terrible person'. The last month has been an incredible journey for you. One filled with more growth than I think most monsters go through in a lifetime. I've been unfair to you in the past, and for that I apologize." He glanced at Alphys and Frisk. "And, while your friends still have quite a bit of growing to do, I have no doubt you'll help them along that journey. But you need to promise me something." He put his hands up. "Now, I don't like making promises, because I don't know if I can keep them," he said, glancing at Frisk again, "but you seem like the type of monster to who'll keep a promise with them until the bitter end."

Undyne nodded. "Go on."

"Alphys and the kid aren't perfect either. They each have their own secrets and their own reasons for keeping them." He gestured towards them. "They might be in on each other's secrets. I can't say for sure. They might be hiding some things from each other and revealing other things. Regardless, there's a lot that the both of them haven't told you about themselves." Sans put his hands in his pockets and looked straight at Undyne, his grin seeming more sincere than usual. "Promise me you'll be patient with them. Promise me you'll stick with them through thick and thin. And promise me…" he hesitated. "Promise me, that no matter what they might have done in the past… No matter how heinous their crimes… You'll help them move past it, just as they helped you."

Undyne didn't hesitate. "I promise."

Sans nodded. "There's just one more thing." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "You're starting to remember, aren't you?"

Undyne looked confused. "Remember what?"

"Yeah, you are. Subconsciously, you know things you wouldn't otherwise, and you're starting to blend the past that was with the past that is."

"You're not making any sense."

"I know I'm not. Just keep something in mind." Sans opened his eyes. "The past you're starting to remember doesn't exist anymore. Don't fear it." He gestured to Frisk and Alphys. "But I think they'll tell you a little more about that when the time is right." He shrugged. "Which might be sooner than you think. I dunno. That's really up to them." He paused for a moment. "I was going to say something else, but then I forgot it. I… should get a planner." He looked back up at Undyne. "See you around." In the blink of an eye, he was gone, as was the barrier separating Undyne from her friends. Their souls were no longer blue, so they ran to her.

"A-are you alright?!" Alphys asked. "I-I- I mean, he… You… Where did he go?!"

Undyne just smiled and started walking forward. "Come on. We've got work to do." Alphys, though utterly confused at what just happened, shook her head and followed, as did Frisk.

 _Okay Chara, you can take over._

 _Did Sans just… Judge her? Can he do that? Can he judge monsters?_

 _He's the judge, he can judge whoever he wants. It's down to his judgement._

They both went silent.

 _We should stop using the word "judge", it just sounds weird now._


	9. Chapter 9: Six Humans

**A/N: Sorry for being away so long, work and whatnot. I released a new cartoon a couple of months ago, you can watch it on YouTube, search "Undertale The Twin Souls", you'll find it, it's literally the first result. It's about Undertale. You probably like that. I dunno. Enjoy.**

* * *

"So. Here we are."

Undyne and her two companions were standing in a small room just below Asgore's garden, having snuck past the king himself to get here. In front of them were seven coffins, each with a different colored soul painted on it. The closest one, the red soul, was labeled "CHARA".

"I can't believe this is actually a thing," Chara said in disbelief. "Sure. Keep corpses in your basement. Whatever, Asgore. That's not creepy or serial killer-y at all."

 _Look who's talking._

 _I didn't ask you, Frisk._

 _You can't say he didn't try,_ Frisk reasoned. _Look, they have pretty decorations!_

Alphys shook her head. "Admittedly, this is better than what I was picturing, but…" she trailed off.

Undyne started walking towards the back of the room. "I'm not going to pretend Asgore doesn't mean well. At least he TRIED to honor the humans' memories."

"A-are these ALL children?" Alphys asked. "These coffins are very small…"

"One of them could be a midget," Chara said nonchalantly. Alphys just stared. "It's just… I mean, you know, I'm just saying. ...what, is that- is that not PC anymore?"

"Let's see here… Where are they…" Undyne said to herself as she looked at each coffin. "Ah. Here we are. Integrity and Justice." She looked at Alphys and Chara. "Frisk, Alphys, I'm gonna get these two. Pick another one and carry it together."

"O-okay. So, Frisk, which one do you—"

"Determination," Chara said immediately. "We're taking Determination." He ran over to his own coffin and grabbed one end of it. Alphys grabbed the other end, and together they lifted it, but… Something wasn't right.

"Hey, these are kind of light," Alphys commented. "Are humans usually this light, or…?"

Chara raised an eyebrow. "What the hell? ...hang on. Alphys, put this one down. Go grab Bravery."

Alphys obliged, and together they lifted Bravery, which was MUCH heavier. "Huh. That's… Odd…"

"That's impossible is what it is," Chara said. "Put this one down." Alphys, though confused, agreed, and Chara ran back over to his coffin.

"What are you—?" Alphys began to ask before Chara slid the top off of the coffin. "AGH!" Alphys averted her eyes. "Frisk, what the hell's gotten into—"

"It's empty!" Chara said, shocked. "It's fucking empty!" Alphys looked back over at the coffin, and gasped when she saw that it was indeed empty.

"W-where—?!"

"What's going on over here?" Undyne asked, approaching the other two with a coffin under each arm.

"My- Chara's grave is empty," Chara said. "How can it be empty? If the body's not here, then where is it?!"

 _Do you remember becoming a ghost?_ Frisk asked.

 _I remember BEING a ghost. My earliest memory as a ghost is meeting you. Your determination woke me up from-_ Chara gasped. "The flower bed."

"What?" Alphys asked.

 _Frisk, I awakened because of the amount of determination coming from your soul. Why would I have awakened in the RUINS if my grave is HERE? You should never have met me, unless my body was never HERE to begin with._

 _So…?_

 _I'm buried beneath the flowers in Old Home! Where you fell!_ Chara sounded excited.

 _...alright. I'll bite. Why do you sound so excited?_ Frisk asked. _So your corpse is on the other side of the Underground. What is the significance of that?_

"Frisk? Are you okay?" Undyne asked, staring at the child in front of her who seemed to have totally stroked out.

"Undyne, I'm fine, I'm just realizing something super important," Chara responded.

 _WHY is it important?_ Frisk asked again.

Chara nodded to Alphys and they picked up Bravery's coffin. _Do you remember when I mentioned that, without a corporeal body, it would be useless to try and fix my busted up soul?_

 _Chara, I hate to break it to you, but you've been dead since the Vietnam War. Your body is all bones now… maybe not even that._

 _Aha, but that's where you're wrong, Frisk._ Chara and Alphys left the room holding the coffin, with Undyne following close behind. _See, my body WOULD HAVE been all bones, if I had been buried normally or stuck in one of those coffins back there._

 _Okay?_

 _But I was buried underneath flowers that Asgore planted CENTURIES ago, when the monsters first arrived in the Underground!_ Chara grinned. Alphys thought he was grinning at her, so she returned a nervous smile. _And HOW have those flowers been there for centuries without decay, you ask? Monster magic, that's how!_

 _Wait, are you saying…_

 _The ground that those flowers sit on is enchanted. Organic matter doesn't decay. My body is in… MOSTLY perfect condition._ He shrugged. _I mean, there's a chance that my body had already started decomposing by the time I was buried, but if they bothered to move me from New Home to Home, that means my body is mostly intact._

 _So what you're saying is…_

 _Nothing that can't be healed with lots of magic, monster food, maybe some of Alphys' lab equipment…_

 _Chara, if this means what I think it means…_ The realization dawned on Frisk. _We can give you another chance._

 _Yeah!_ Suddenly, Chara grew sad. _Yeah…_

 _What's wrong?_

 _I just… wish we could give Asriel another chance._

 _Who? Oh, right, your brother._

When they got back into the Judgement Hall, they saw Sans again.

"Heya. Back so soon?" He chuckled. "Sorry. I'm off duty. Come back later," he said, winking. He then noticed that they were carrying coffins. "Doing a bit of grave robbing, are we?"

Undyne rolled her eye. "Grave digging, more like. Don't tell the king about this."

"Nah. That would mean I'd have to walk down that long hallway." He yawned. "Hey, where are you planning to bury that?"

"Snowdin. It's less likely to be disturbed," Undyne answered, walking past Sans.

"I know a shortcut."

Undyne scoffed. "Yeah, okay. I know the Underground like the back of my hand, Sans, and there're no shortcuts from New Home to-" she stopped as soon as she noticed it was snowing. "...Snowdin." Undyne looked around and noticed that she and her companions were indeed in the woods near Snowdin. "What the hell?"

"Don't mention it," Sans said, before turning around and walking in the other direction.

Alphys didn't seem surprised. "Yup. He pulled that kind of thing all the time when we were teenagers."

Undyne chuckled. "Jeez, you sure did spend a lot of time with him when you were teenagers. What were you, dating?" She laughed heartily for a bit, then glanced over at Alphys when she noticed she wasn't laughing. The lizard's face was completely red. "Alphys? What's- oh. OH! BWAHAHAHA!" Undyne started laughing harder than ever. "Are you serious?! That's a real thing?! Oh man, that's great!"

Alphys and Chara set down the coffin. "L-let's just find a place to bury these…"

"COME ON, you gotta tell me what that was like," Undyne pleaded.

"Is there a storage box nearby? I put a shovel in my storage box," Alphys said, seemingly ignoring the issue.

"Did you bone?" Undyne asked. "Pun absolutely intended," she added a moment later, throwing her own values out of the window.

"OH MY GOD!" Alphys shouted. "I'M IGNORING YOU NOW." Having found a storage box, she pulled two shovels out and handed one to Frisk. "Come on, Frisk, let's go find a place to dig."

"How did that work? Was there magic involved? Did you do anything weird with the lab equipment? Did you wash it afterwards? What did you even talk about? Did he make any provocative puns at you? He's so lazy, did he even move during? Or did you do all of the work?"

"UNDYNE!" Alphys said, exasperated with the line of questioning. "There's a child with us!"

Chara started asking questions too. "What did the aftermath look like? Did you have to do it in secret? How wild did things get? How often did you do it?"

Alphys groaned. "It lasted, like six months, tops!" She started digging, but she stopped a moment later and narrowed her eyes. "And we didn't have sex! I don't think he can. I think it's biologically impossible for him." She buried the head of the shovel in the ground once more and blinked. "I think."

Silence.

"So what you're saying is he can't get a _boner?_ " Chara asked. Undyne snorted at the pun.

"Remember all those little talks about how we should look forward to the future instead of looking back at the past?" Alphys asked, frustrated. "This is one of those things! I've moved on, I've set my sights on different things and different people!"

Undyne smirked. "Like who?" she asked, slightly suggestively.

Alphys didn't pick up on Undyne's tone, it seemed. "Like—" she stopped herself, sputtering and stammering like a fool. "Like, ah, um, nobody!"

"No, come on, like who?"

"Undyne, we REALLY should focus on burying these dead kids." She looked over at Bravery's coffin to check their name. "Kenny here from… 1997 looks like he really wants to be buried!"

Undyne shook her head, chuckling as she summoned a spear. She glanced at its head, and it turned into a spade. "Never change, you dweeb." Undyne began digging her own ditch. Chara did the same.

An hour passed, and the trio had dug three holes and buried a coffin in each. Undyne tore the bark off of a nearby tree and made a headstone for each of the deceased humans as well. They were labeled, from left to right:

 _Kenny. BRAVERY. 198X - 1997._

 _Kristen. PATIENCE. 200X - 2013._

 _Seth. JUSTICE. 200X - 2013._

The three friends stood and stared at the graves in silence for several minutes. They mutually agreed to go back to New Home over the next week to get the rest of the children and bury them here, where nobody would disturb them. For now, though, they stayed respectfully silent.

Finally, Chara spoke up. "It's customary for those who knew the deceased to say a few words about them." He glanced at Undyne. "I don't know if… If you want to…"

"I don't know if I deserve to," Undyne said.

"You don't have to."

They stood in silence for a little while longer. After another couple of minutes, Undyne cleared her throat. Alphys and Chara were surprised, and looked at her as she began to speak. "When I joined the royal guard seven or eight years ago, I took an oath to protect the innocent against evil forces at all costs. The fact that I'm standing here saying these words in these circumstances means I really screwed the pooch on that. You two…" Chara and Alphys knew Undyne wasn't speaking to the two of them. "You were resourceful. You were smart. You knew how to avoid the guard at all costs. I respect that. You would have been an asset to your side in the war, if either of us had been around back then. In the end, though…

"I don't know why I'm saying any of this. You can't hear me. Your souls can't even hear me. Your souls are trapped. And as much as I would like to say these things to you directly… Even if I knew where Asgore was keeping you two… I can't. If any of the souls were released, monster kind would be set back. And I can't do that. One day, when I'm a pile of dust, Frisk here will pass on from old age. ...right? Humans do that, right?" Chara nodded. "When that day comes, we'll have the seventh soul. And the sacrifices you two made will not be in vain. But… I'm sure you don't want to hear that.

"I suppose what I really want to say is that I'm sorry." Undyne sighed. "I'm sorry that you didn't get to live out your life. Neither of you asked to end up in this rotten cave. Neither of you asked for a fight. I just… No. I'm not going to give you an excuse." She kneeled down. "I hope that, in the next life, we can be friends. ...if there is a next life. If you two ended up in the next life." Undyne glanced away, looking sadder than before. "If I end up in the next life." She looked at Chara. "Frisk, only good people end up in the afterlife, right?"

Chara shrugged. "That's what people say."

Undyne stood up and chuckled. "Yeah, I'm definitely not ending up there." She looked back down at the graves and put her hands in her pockets. "So I guess that's all. Sorry I couldn't do anything grand for you guys. Sorry your souls are still trapped. ...and I'm sorry I killed you in the first place." She took a deep breath. "The other humans'll join you guys soon. I guess since Determination's coffin was empty, there's only three more left to bury." She paused for a moment before adding "Please don't be mad at Asgore for all of this. He's just doing what he thinks he has to do." More silence. Alphys stepped forward.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

Undyne chuckled. "You know, this wasn't what I was picturing when I planned this whole thing out," she admitted. "I thought we'd be throwing this grand celebration of life, but all I really did was give this really crappy speech to a crappy tombstone. The humans can't even hear me, their souls are trapped in a jar somewhere—"

"They can hear you," Chara interrupted.

"...what?"

"They can hear you," he repeated.

"Explain."

"Okay, well, maybe they can't hear you exactly, but…" Chara sighed. "When you reach out to a soul with your soul, they can sort of… Sense what you're feeling. I have no doubt that these kids understand what you were trying to say, even as far away as they are. Soul connections have no boundaries. …just trust me, I know these things."

Undyne looked back at the headstones and stares for a few seconds. A tear rolled down her cheek and she smiled. "That's awesome." After a few more moments of silence, Undyne turned around and started walking. "Our work here is done. We'll get the rest of them tomorrow." Chara and Alphys followed.

 _Hey, how did you know that?_ Frisk asked.

 _Because,_ Chara responded. _I can still feel Asriel. Somewhere. His soul is shattered. Fear and hatred cloud his mind. But… The pieces are out there, somewhere. I can feel those pieces._ _I want to tell him that everything's going to be okay. That he doesn't have to be defined by what he's become. But he's so far gone, that although I can sense him, I can't hear him. And he can't hear me._

 _What… HAS he become?_

 _I don't know for sure, yet, but…_ Chara sighed, forgetting that he was the one controlling the body. Alphys looked at him, and he waved it off. _I think Asriel might be the flower._

 _Flowey? And Asriel? But… How—_

 _I don't have all of the puzzle pieces yet. This is still just an educated guess. But he knew who I was. And that story he told us in the last timeline… It has to be him._

Suddenly, Alphys stopped and stared into the woods. Chara bumped into her, and she made an alarmed noise, startling both Chara and Undyne, who turned around to observe the scene. Chara backed up and looked at Alphys. "Are you alright?" he asked.

Alphys glanced back at where she was staring. What was she staring at? She could have sworn she saw a figure in the woods, staring back at her, but as her eyes scanned the area, she came to the conclusion that there was nothing there and her eyes were just playing tricks on her. She was almost certain she'd just seen, out of the corner of her eye, a tree or a rock that looked like something else.

She shrugged. "Sorry, Frisk. Just thought I saw something," she said, and they kept walking. Soon, they reached Papyrus' house, where the tall skeleton was standing and waiting.

"Undyne! Human! Third person! I did not see you come through here." He looked rather annoyed. "Are you three pranking me through space and time?"

Chara shrugged. "We took a shortcut—" he had forgotten the skeleton's name "—Papyyyyruuuussss?" he tested, not knowing if he was right.

"Wowie! You've come up with a cool elongated way to say my name!" Papyrus was practically glowing. "How are you today Uuunnnnnndyyyy—"

"Don't do that."

"Okay."

Undyne turned to her friends. "Well, this is my stop. Thanks for coming out with me tonight, guys."

"Don't mention it, Undyne," Alphys responded. "I'm glad we were able to help." She smiled at Undyne, who returned the smile. Then, sighing, Undyne bent down and kissed the lizard monster on her nose, leaving the receiving party both shocked and flustered. She kissed Chara on the cheek as well; he was less grateful, and wiped it off immediately afterwards, making a grossed out noise as he did so.

"Heh. Goodnight, guys." Undyne turned around and entered the house.

Papyrus began to follow. "Ah, how I envy those with lips. If I had lips, I'd be even more good looking!" He entered the house and shut the door, leaving Alphys and Chara alone. Alphys' face was red, as was Chara's, though for different reasons.

"Sheesh. PDA is not okay, Undyne," Chara said as he crossed his arms.

"S-she… I… We…" Alphys looked like she could faint. Chara looked over at her with a bored look on his face.

"You aren't gonna turn to dust, are you?" he asked.

"I-I might…" she responded.

"Alright, come on, Juliet, let's get back to the lab."

"W-wait!" Alphys yelled after the child when they started walking towards Waterfall. Suddenly, they stumbled and gasped. Frisk turned, her eyes returning to their naturally green color, to face Alphys, who looked concerned.

"I'm fine. I'm just tired," she responded. She turned back towards Waterfall and began walking. Alphys followed, debating whether or not to ask…

"Ah, um, Frisk?" she began. Frisk stopped and turned around again. Alphys continued. "So, uh, there's something I've noticed for a while, and it's, uh, bugging me. A lot."

Frisk walked closer to Alphys with genuine concern on her face. "What's wrong, Alphys?"

Alphys scratched the back of her neck. "So, um, sometimes you do this thing?" Alphys pointed to her face and made expressions to get her point across. "Sometimes you're all kind and happy-go-lucky and your eyes are green?" She then made an exaggerated frown, crossed her arms, and scrunched her body up to mimick a grumpy old man. "But then other times you're all grumpy and serious and your eyes are red like a horror movie demon." She returned to her normal posture and twiddled her fingers. "I tried not to pay too much attention to it but it happened for basically the whole day today and I'm a little bit worried? So I guess what I'm trying to say is…" She glanced around and gathered her words. "Why is… those things?" she asked as eloquently as possible.

Frisk sighed. "Alphys, how much can you tell me about determination?"

Alphys glanced away. "A little bit too much, if you ask me." She coughed. "What does that have to do with—"

"How much do you know about souls?"

"Not as much, but again, what—"

"So let's just say, hypothetically," Frisk began while walking again as Alphys followed, "that we have, in our possession, an intact piece of a shattered soul."

Alphus narrowed her eyes. "That's impossible, but go on."

"NOW let's imagine that we have access to this soul's original body in near perfect condition." Frisk stopped walking and turned back around to face Alphys. She had an extremely determined look on her face, a look which was just as scary on her face as it was on Undyne's. "Would we be able to fix that soul and then put it back in its original body?"

Alphys just stared. "You're asking me if I can do necromancy," she said flatly. "What a ridiculous question. Of COURSE I can, are you kidding me? If we had a body in perfect condition, or even just a vessel, and if we SOMEHOW had even just a little piece of the soul, I have a few theories that we would be able to test out. Where is this conversation going?"

"Alphys, I… Think I need some time to think," Frisk said, grinning. "Come on. Let's get back to Hotland," she said as she ran into Waterfall. Alphys raised an eyebrow and followed.


	10. Chapter 10: It Hits the Fan, Part 1

"Frisk!" Alphys shouted as Frisk ran into the lab, gasping for breath as she tried to keep up. "What… Hah… What's the hurry?" Once she was in the lab herself, Alphys leaned against the wall to catch her breath. "I think I can skip my workout today," she remarked, still breathing heavily. Once she started breathing normally again, she looked back up at the human child, who seemed to be staring at something in her left hand. "Whatcha lookin' at?" She walked over and saw that the child was holding what appeared to be a worn dagger. "A knife?"

Frisk closed her eyes. "Does it frighten you that I have this?"

Alphys tilted her head. "Should it?"

"Just… Knowing what I could do with it."

Alphys smiled and shook her head. "Not one bit!"

Frisk opened her eyes, the red glint returning. "I could do a lot of damage with this. Your guard is down entirely. I could abuse your trust and take you out with a single move."

Alphys crossed her arms, still smiling. "Yeah, you could." She sighed and put a hand on Frisk's shoulder. "Look, the idea hasn't totally slipped my mind that you could POSSIBLY be dangerous to me. Do you scare me on occasion? Sure! Does your questionable past raise concerns? Of course it does." Frisk pulled away, but Alphys kept smiling. "But I trust you completely, Frisk," she said. "That's what friendship is. We're friends. Hell, at this point we're basically family." She stared off at nothing. "A small, chronically depressed family." Alphys frowned and spaced out for a moment before looking back at Frisk. "The point is that this weapon says nothing about the person wielding it. Just between you and me, I have a sword upstairs because I think swords are cool."

Frisk looked at the blade. She stared at her reflection before smiling and putting it down. "Thanks, Alphys. I'm glad you trust me. It's just… Some of the stuff I'm about to tell you is pretty heavy and… When you combine it with my spotty past—"

"Please, Frisk," Alphys interrupted. "If you were going to hurt me, you'd have done it already. I mean, come on, what, did you gain somebody's trust before killing them in that other timeline?" Alphys laughed, but stopped when she noticed Frisk wasn't laughing. "Jeez, kid…" She coughed and looked away. "A-anyway, I feel safe around you. Almost as much as I do around Undyne. I feel like… I feel like you'd do anything to help out a friend. I feel like if I was in trouble, you would have my back. I feel like… If anything ever happened to me… Or… If I did something, uh, regrettable, you'd… N-not that that's why I keep you around, I mean, I care about you a lot—"

"Alphys, I know what you mean, it's alright."

"I do have ONE question about the knife," Alphys continued. "Where'd you get it?"

"Remember when I went to go get the king's key?"

Frisk asked.

Alphys groaned. "Oh, God, Frisk, did you steal that?" She put her hands in her face. "Listen, you can't just go around grabbing every item you find on the floor. What do you think this is, an RPG?"

Frisk shook her head. "I didn't steal it. It belonged to me."

Alphys looked back up, eyes narrowed, frowning at the child in front of her. She would never admit this, but secretly Alphys was awaiting the day she could scold Frisk. She thought it'd complete the whole "guardian" feel of their relationship. Before she could say anything, however, she noticed that Frisk's pupils were red. "Go on…" Alphys said warily. She felt like her day, which consisted so far of breaking into her boss's house, watching her best friend get judged, stealing corpses, dedicating a human cemetery in Snowdin, and finally getting a kiss from Undyne (platonic as, she admitted to herself, it probably was) was somehow about to get even more interesting.

Frisk blinked and her eyes returned to normal. "Okay. So. When a being dies, their soul eventually shatters, correct?"

"Correct. Monsters faster than humans."

"And how quickly said soul disappears after shattering depends on how much determination the recently deceased possessed, right?"

"That's the theory," Alphys sighed. "According to Doctor Gaster's notes on the topic, the longest recorded time is about two hours."

"So imagine, if you will, a soul that has long since shattered," Frisk began, "but never faded away."

Alphys blinked. "Impossible, but go on."

Frisk continued. "Imagine that this soul found, say, a body to piggyback on. Imagine that the remainder of this soul latched onto the nearest living thing and, essentially, possessed it."

Alphys raised an eyebrow. "I don't understand."

Frisk sighed. "This is going to be so hard to explain…"

* * *

Undyne jolted awake. Another nightmare. Once again, she dreamt about that make-believe impossible scenario where Frisk tried to hurt her and others. Undyne couldn't understand why she was having these nightmares. She knew, without a doubt, that Frisk was basically incapable of harming others. Other than these dreams, the idea never even crossed Undyne's mind.

 _So why have I been having this dream so much?_ she asked herself. Maybe it was the bed she was sleeping on. That is, not a bed at all. Papyrus' couch wasn't exactly the most comfortable thing to be sleeping on, so she thought that maybe the discomfort was causing… uncomfortable dreams? _Ok, that's reaching,_ she admitted. Still, though, she did think it would be best to find a new place to stay, soon. _I think I'm overstaying my welcome,_ she thought. Plus, being around Sans so much was starting to get really awkward.

That train of thought led her to another conclusion. She remembered what Sans had told her in the Judgement Hall. She was… Remembering. Remembering what? Those were nightmares. Not memories. Undyne was pretty sure she'd remember dying. That didn't seem like the sort of thing she'd forget.

Besides, the dream got things wrong. Frisk was right-handed in the dream, but she's left handed in reality. Although, when Frisk does the weird red-eye thing, she looks eerily similar to dream Frisk… Undyne chalked that bit up to her mind using the things that made her uncomfortable to cook up bad dreams.

She began to also think about Alphys' bathroom. Why had the mere sight of the bathroom door given her chills before? She never saw what was behind it, but that alone shouldn't have been enough to unnerve her.

The other day, she talked about the dream with Papyrus, who, like her, found the circumstances to be completely ridiculous.

"That's completely ridiculous!" Papyrus said as he stirred the spaghetti. "Why would the human want to fight YOU? That's basically suicidal!"

"I know, right?!" Undyne yelled. "It's like, I'm so tough and scary, right? Nobody WANTS to fight me. And Frisk is a HUGE WEENIE! So why am I having dreams where Frisk wants to fight me?! IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!" She groaned in frustration. "I bet fighting Frisk would be SO COOL, but she's all," Undyne began to mock a little girl's voice, which was much higher pitched than Frisk's actual voice, "'No, I'm a pacifist. I don't fight people, blah blah blah, monsters are super fragile and I might accidentally kill you.' Like, DON'T BE SUCH A BABY!"

Papyrus scratched his chin. "Hmmmm. Perhaps you're self-conscious about letting yourself go."

There was a beat of silence between them.

"What do you mean by that, Papyrus?" Undyne asked, glaring at him.

Papyrus didn't seem to notice. "Sans!" he shouted to his brother, who was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a newspaper he found at the dump. If the headline was any indication, 1963 was not a good year for humans. "What do you think the significance of Undyne's dreams are?"

Sans looked up from his newspaper. "I dunno, bro. Something seems _fishy_ about it, though."

That was the last time Undyne spoke to Sans, until earlier today, that is. She focused back on the judgement. "Remembering," she pondered to herself. "Remembering what?!" she asked, frustrated.

* * *

Frisk sighed in frustration. "Come on, Alphys," she said, pinching her nose bridge. The human stood in front of a chalkboard, which was covered in a diagram that, she thought, was fairly simple.

"I'm sorry, I just don't get it," Alphys said. "Okay, so, Asgore's dead kids in the 60s, I got that part. The human's soul shattered." She glanced at the board. "Right?"

"Yes, very good."

"So then how does it possess someone?"

"With a fragment."

Alphys blinked. "So then what happens to the other pieces?"

"I don't know, does it matter?"

"Sort of? If a being has only part of a soul it's not complete."

Frisk smacked her forehead. She took in a deep breath to calm herself down. Chara's influence on her really was making her more irritable. "Yes, that's the point I'm trying to get across."

"So we have just a pissed off incomplete ghost walking around."

"No, the pissed off incomplete ghost isn't walking around, it's tied to a host."

"Frisk, none of this makes any sense," Alphys said, seemingly just as frustrated. "There are so many holes."

"I'M CARRYING A SECOND CONSCIOUSNESS!" Frisk shouted finally. "God."

Alphys blinked. "Frisk, why didn't you just say that in the first place?"

Frisk sighed. "So this other soul's name is Chara, and-"

"And Chara's the one speaking right now," Alphys interrupted. Chara gasped.

"Whoa."

Alphys simply nodded. "I might not have known exactly what was going on, but I had a few guesses." She pushed in her glasses and walked over to Chara. "You have a few tells. Your posture, your tone," she glanced at Chara's idle hands. "...your dominant hand…" Alphys slowly thought about this revelation. Something concerning came to her mind. "Does Undyne know about this?"

Frisk regained control and shook her head. "No," she said. She then thought for a moment about what Undyne said the night she told Frisk about her nightmares. "Not entirely," she added.

Alphys narrowed her eyes. "She was confused about which hand you use to write this morning." She glanced over at the doorway leading into the kitchen. "I'm going to brew a pot of coffee. I think we're going to be up a while. Keep talking," she said as she and Frisk walked into the kitchen. Alphys began making preparations while Frisk continued.

"She might know something about the resets."

Alphys froze, dropping the coffee pot on the floor. It shattered on impact. She slowly turned towards Frisk, wide-eyed. "What?" she asked for clarification.

"I think Undyne can remember the resets," Frisk clarified. That was clearly not what Alphys wanted to hear.

"What do you MEAN," Alphys began, desperately walking towards Frisk, "Undyne can remember the resets?!" Alphys glanced around frantically, as if searching the room for answers. "I can't even remember the resets and I KNOW about them!"

* * *

Undyne paced the room. Remembering… what? This was driving her nuts. Groaning, she grabbed her coat and put on her boots. She needed to go for a walk or she was going to go insane. Before leaving, she left a note in case Papyrus wondered where she had gone:

 _Papyrus,_

 _Everything is weird right now. Went for a walk. Hope my screaming night terrors didn't wake you._

 _Undyne_

 _P.S. If I die on my walk please rate the cause of death by coolness on a 1-10 scale._

Undyne stepped outside and was greeted by the bitter cold. Not wanting to stand in the cold for much longer, she turned in the direction of Waterfall. Before reaching the end of Snowdin, however, she spotted a speck of gold in the white snow.

"...remember… Why can't I remember?" a small voice asked itself. Curious, Undyne approached it. "I should be able to… Why can't I… What did Chara do?" Undyne soon found herself in front of a small flower monster that she'd never seen before, which was hunched over and muttering to itself.

"Uh, heya," Undyne greeted. Startled, the little flower turned around and looked up at her. It looked frustrated. "You alright, little buddy?"

The flower shook its head. "I'm trying to remember… Something. Something I definitely should be remembering, but I CAN'T. I have such a great memory normally, and now…" the flower trailed off.

Undyne shrugged. "Eh. I'm having memory problems too. Namely, I'm remembering things that didn't happen." Undyne crossed her arms and thought about it for a second. "Have we met?" she asked.

The flower glanced around. "I don't remember," he said. "I… Guess not?"

Undyne smiled. "Name's Undyne! Nice to meet ya!"

The flower swallowed. "I'm Flowey. Flowey the Flower." Flowey looked curiously up at Undyne. "You said you're remembering things that didn't happen?"

"Yeah. Been having weird dreams about all my friends dying. They feel like something I've seen before, but that's impossible." Undyne scratched the back of her neck. "You know. Because they're not dead."

Flowey's eyes widened. _Can she… No, that's impossible,_ he thought to himself. There was no way she could remember the resets. If HE couldn't remember anymore, nobody could.

...right?

Suddenly, Undyne gasped. "Hey! I know! We're both having memory problems!" she exclaimed. "Let's go see my really smart friend! I bet she knows lots about this!" Undyne started off before realizing her new friend was rooted to the ground. "Uh, can you move, or…?"

Flowey blinked. "Who's your friend?" Suddenly, he shouted and recoiled as a spear dug itself into the ground near him. Undyne dug the flower out and brought him up to her shoulder, where she let him rest. He glared at her, annoyed, although despite his annoyance he reluctantly wrapped his roots loosely around her bicep.

Undyne grinned. "Why, only the ROYAL SCIENTIST! She's a good friend of mine!"

Flowey rolled his eyes. "Oh, the Royal Scien- R- ROYAL SCIENTIST?!" he exclaimed, surprised. "No, no, no no no no. No." He shook his head angrily. "We are NOT going to go see her."

"Why not?"

"Because! She…" Flowey stopped himself. He couldn't just straight-out tell her his origin story, now could he? "Will she even be awake? It's pretty late."

"Ah, she's got a kid now. Sort of. It's complicated." Undyne began walking in the direction of the River Person. "Kids, like, cry a lot, right? So she's probably already awake from that."

"Big kids don't cry," Flowey said coldly. Undyne glanced at him. "Uh, I mean, babies cry."

Undyne grinned. "Hah! They sure do!" As they neared the intersection, she frowned and slowed down. "Uh, but, you know, crying doesn't make you a BABY," she reasoned. "Sadness is just another emotion people use to express themselves!"

"Oh, that must be nice."

Undyne stopped. "What?"

Flowey's eyes widened. He slipped up again! "I… don't get sad!" he covered, grinning. "I'm just happy-go-lucky, all day, every day, and GOLLY, is it exhausting!"

Undyne smiled and nodded. "You're really lucky, then! I bet you make a lot of your friends smile, too!"

Flowey frowned. _Right. Friends._

Undyne, flower in tow, boarded the boat, which began drifting in the direction of Hotland. The river person began humming their usual song.

"Tra la la. Beware of the man who speaks in hands."

* * *

Alphys paced the room. "Oh, this is bad, Frisk."

"It's not THAT bad."

"No, Chara, this is REALLY bad!" Alphys countered, not even batting an eyelash at the other soul taking control. "Okay. Okay. Calm down Alphys, we'll get through this. Alright! Let's see! How long can we feasibly keep the concept of time travel from entering Undyne's mind?"

"Alphys," Frisk said. Alphys looked over. This was the real Frisk speaking. She had a look of compassion in her eyes that the other soul lacked. "It's going to be alright." Frisk walked over to Alphys and hugged her. "I promise. We'll be fine." She pulled away to look at the lizard monster. "Undyne doesn't know anything yet. It's all just residual stuff."

Alphys frowned. "How do you KNOW it's all just residual, Frisk?"

Frisk smiled. "Because I didn't say anything just now."

Alphys blinked. "Excuse me?"

Frisk walked back towards the counter. "I loaded my save a few minutes ago. This time around, I stayed completely silent after I hugged you." She turned towards Alphys and winked. "Your brain filled in the gaps."

Alphys narrowed her eyes. "Nice try, Frisk, but…" She glanced out the door. She dashed out, followed by a smiling Frisk, sat at her computer in the next room, and pulled up the kitchen's security footage.

" _Alphys," Frisk said. Alphys looked over. This was the real Frisk speaking. She had a look of compassion in her eyes that the other soul lacked. "It's going to be alright." Frisk walked over to Alphys and hugged her. No words were said between the two for several seconds. Frisk pulled away to look at the lizard monster, and was silent once again._

 _Alphys frowned. "How do you KNOW it's all just residual, Frisk?"_

 _Frisk smiled. "Because I didn't say anything just now."_

Alphys gasped. Frisk approached her.

"Anyone can remember a reset," she said. "At least, they can remember very minute details." She shrugged. "Undyne is just remembering a little more. That's all."

"How-"

"Timey-whimey."

Alphys let out a deep breath and sank into her chair, relaxing.

"Besides," Frisk began, "we agreed we'd tell her about the resets eventually."

Alphys sighed. "I know, Frisk. I know. I just… Don't think the time is right."

Undyne stopped. She was just outside the lab.

"Why are we stopping?" Flowey asked.

Undyne seemed disoriented. She looked around before glancing at the spot she was standing. "We were a few steps ahead."

"What?"

Undyne frowned, then shook her head. "It's nothing. I swear we just went backwards."

Flowey rolled his eyes. "You're probably just imagining things." He briefly considered the idea that Chara loaded a save, but to only load one a few seconds before was ridiculous. Undyne was definitely just miscounting her steps.

The fish monster shrugged. "I guess." She continued towards the lab. The automatic door opened for her and she stepped in. Just as she suspected, Alphys and Frisk were both awake. They were apparently in the middle of a conversation.

"...tell her about the resets eventually."

"I know, Frisk. I know. I just… Don't think the time is right."

Undyne didn't really pay much attention to what they were saying, but Flowey did. He narrowed his eyes and glared in the human's direction. _What is your game, Chara?_

"Heya, guys!" Undyne shouted, grinning at her two best friends. Alphys gasped and turned around, letting out a startled yelp as she saw Undyne.

"U-Undyne! What, uh…" her eyes wandered over to the flower on Undyne's shoulder. "Uh- uh, you- UM-"

Frisk stepped forward and saw what was going on. Glaring, she stepped slightly—and defensively—in front of Alphys, who was still stammering like a fool. Flowey rolled his eyes and gestured up at Undyne. Frisk looked back up at Undyne, who seemed confused by the situation.

"Uh, is this a bad time?" she asked.

Frisk stared at Undyne, then at Flowey, then at Undyne again. Suddenly, Alphys' phone rang. Flowey cringed at the ringtone; it seemed to be a MIDI version of the Mew Mew Kissy Cutie theme song, " _Neko no sekkusu wa mondai o kaiketsu suru."_

"AH! I-I'll get that!" She looked at the caller ID and frowned. "Nevermind, I'm not getting that."

"Who is it?" asked Undyne.

"Asgore," Alphys said nonchalantly. "I figured we probably have more important things to deal with right now, and also we have a human right here, so Asgore will have to wait." The phone continued ringing.

Frisk dropped her defensive stance and walked closer to Undyne. "What brings you here?" she asked, still cautiously staring up Flowey.

Undyne didn't seem to notice. "Well, my new pal and I have a problem that we think Alphys might be able to help us with!"

"What problem?" Frisk asked.

Undyne grinned. "You killed me!"

Frisk gasped and stepped backwards. Alphys nearly fainted. "How the hell-" Frisk began.

Undyne interrupted. "Well, in a dream, I mean," she laughed. "Obviously you didn't do that for REAL, or else I wouldn't be here!" Frisk sighed and pinched her nose bridge. "But the dreams feel really real," Undyne continued, "and other weird stuff is going on too. It's like, a memory, or something. I'm remembering stuff that never happened."

Frisk cast a sideways glance towards Alphys, who had moved in closer. She was still looking cautiously at Flowey, something that caught Frisk's attention. Frisk glanced at Flowey, then back at Alphys.

"Do you two know each other?" she asked finally. She glanced back over at Flowey, who was glaring in Alphys' direction.

"No," the flower responded flatly. "I've never met this _monster_ before in my life." The word "monster", although in this context referring to a literal monster, was given a slight emphasis that Frisk couldn't help but notice. Flowey's eyes narrowed slightly. "Perhaps we should get to know each other a little better." Frisk could sense a slight air of hostility from the tone in his voice. She also had the slightest feeling that Flowey and Alphys had, in fact, met before.

Alphys swallowed and looked away. "U-uh, I'm Alphys. The Royal Scientist."

"Flowey. The flower," Flowey responded, still glaring. "Pleased to 'meet' you, Alphys. Golly, Royal Scientist, huh?" He leaned forward. "What do you do?" he asked in quite possibly the most falsely inquisitive voice Frisk had ever heard.

Undyne was, apparently, missing the subtext of the conversation. "Oh, she does all kinds of things! She builds robots, and… Monitors the Underground, and… Huh." Undyne scratched her head. "Other stuff, I guess. It mostly has to do with numbers, I think, I'm not really that good at numbers, so I don't know what most of it is."

"How interesting," the flower said. From the tone of voice he was using, he appeared to have been holding back genuine anger. "I suppose you must know a lot about… DETERMINATION," Flowey teased. "Say, Alphys. I've always wondered. What happens if you give determination to an inanimate object?"

Alphys tugged at her collar. "Uh, nothing?"

"Nothing, huh? What if a monster's dust was spread on said inanimate object? What happens then?"

Alphys shrunk a little. "Oh, lord," she muttered. This conversation left her feeling a little awkward, to say the least.

 _Oh!_ Chara exclaimed. It appeared he'd just figured something out, but Frisk wasn't really concerned with that right now. She was presently concerned with defusing the situation.

"So, Undyne," Frisk began, attempting to deflect everyone's attention to a different conflict entirely. "You said you're remembering things that never happened. Care to… Care to elaborate?" she asked.

Undyne nodded. "Alright, so picture this." Frisk really didn't have to. "The Underground is silent. Totally empty. Not a soul around. I can't find Papyrus, I can't find any of the dogs. Nobody." Frisk shuddered. "Turns out, there's some crazy psycho human running around killing everyone, and like, you know, that in and of itself isn't a huge deal, I have dreams all the time where I gotta save the entire Underground from public enemy number one. But this one feels more real. Like I was actually there." Frisk looked away.

"Anyway, I follow this human through Waterfall, and let me tell you, this human's a real scumbag. So finally, I see them try and hurt this monster kid." Undyne narrowed her eye. "It's always… That one kid who followed you around when you went through Waterfall. Remember that kid?" Frisk nodded. "So I'm like, 'wow, that's not cool'. So like a HERO, I jump in front of him and take the blow. And it hurts. Like, it REALLY hurts." Undyne grasped her stomach, as if she was remembering the pain itself. "I don't think I've ever felt pain in a dream like I have in this one. It was bad. So I look up, and I see…" she frowned. "The human is you. And, somehow, I gather the determination to keep going. And then we fight." Undyne's eyelid lowered, as if the thought genuinely upset her. "And the only question running through my mind is, 'why'? Why is it like this? Why did you… Do this?" Frisk sighed. "That's where things sort of branch off. Sometimes, I… win. But we lose your soul. And I have to fix the Underground. I have to console families. I have to grieve on my own. I have to figure out, what the hell am I going to do with the empty town you left behind? And I talk to Alphys about it. And she doesn't know what to do either. ...sometimes, you win. At the end of the dream though, it seems like… Nobody wins."

"Believe me, nobody won that fight," Frisk muttered to herself.

"What was that?" Undyne asked Frisk to repeat herself.

"Nothing. Continue."

"Anyway, I know it shouldn't bug me this much but… It does." Undyne closed her eye and sighed. "It bugs me a lot."

Frisk looked away again, her face grim. _Ok,_ she thought. _So Undyne remembers a lot more than I thought._

In this moment, Frisk realized she was _screwed._

Alphys glanced at Flowey again. "W-what sort of problems are you having?"

Flowey looked unfazed by the story Undyne just told. "I'm having basically the opposite problem. I can't remember any rese- I can't remember anything," he quickly corrected himself.

Alphys raised an eyebrow. Frisk—no, Chara, Alphys could tell the difference now—tugged at Alphys' sleeve and gestured to the other side of the room.

"Just one second," Alphys said before convening on the other end with Chara. "What?"

"As- The flower can remember resets," Chara whispered, arms crossed. "At least, I thought so, anyway. Sounds like he can't now."

Alphys' eyes darted back to Undyne and Flowey. She slowly returned her gaze to Chara. "So Undyne can remember resets, and Flowey can't. But it used to be the other way around." She frowned. "Do you think they're connected?"

"Again, Undyne can't fully remember. It's all residual. Flowey knew when a reset was coming."

Alphys groaned and pinched her nose bridge. "I'm not qualified for this. This isn't what I signed up for." She sighed. "Okay. Deep breaths. You can do this." Alphys looked at Chara with a determined look on her face. "So, what do we do?"

Chara frowned. "You created Flowey, didn't you?"

Alphys started stammering. "I-I didn't- it was- look, the king needed a vessel for- It's just a soulless husk, you know?"

Chara's tone suddenly became much more hostile. "That soulless husk used to be my brother."

Alphys gasped. "O-oh my god, that's the king's son." She looked over at Flowey, horrified. "I… I… Told you I can do necromancy!"

"Alphys!"

Alphys closed her eyes. "I know, I screwed up. Okay? What do you want? I was 17. Gaster had just died, Sans had left the lab, I was literally BY MYSELF in this position that I didn't even WANT, and because I'm an IDIOT, I thought, hey, let's inject this determination stuff into a flower, it'll be a nice surprise for the King! I didn't know his son's dust was spread all over the flower garden!"

"Asriel—and so help me god, Alphys, you will treat that name with respect—was a fucking SAINT and he does NOT deserve to be stuck in that flower!"

 _Chara, you need to calm down._

While Alphys and the human were arguing, Undyne glanced around the room. "Say, Flowey, you probably wanna find somewhere comfy to be set down, huh?"

Flowey was too busy paying attention to the argument in complete bewilderment. "I… Can you hear what they're saying? I can't make out their whispers."

Undyne snapped her fingers. "I know!" she exclaimed. "I wonder where Al keeps her gardening tools."

"Get me a little closer, I wanna know what they're saying."

Undyne found a rather large coffee mug on the desk. She inspected it and saw no stains or leftovers. "Eh, good enough." Suddenly, and without warning, she dumped Flowey into the mug, much to his annoyance. She then found a bag of fertilizer near the vegetable garden Alphys and the human had been growing and dumped a bunch of it in.

Flowey cringed. "Ugh, what's in this stuff?" he asked, disgusted by the horrible stench.

Undyne glanced at the list of nutrients found in the bag. "Ew, you probably don't want me to tell you," she said, sticking her tongue out as she read off some of the things found in a bag of fertilizer.

Flowey rolled his eyes. "Figures." He returned his attention to Chara and Alphys, who appeared to be arguing about… Something. If only he could hear what they were saying.

"I can't believe you're being so flippant about this!" Chara exclaimed, fuming. He wasn't sure where this anger came from; he wasn't this angry a few moments ago. She disrespected Asriel, and that just set him off.

But hadn't he disrespected Asriel, so long ago?

Alphys groaned. "Chara, I feel bad about it. I do! But we can't do anything, so what's the point in-?"

"We can TRY!" Chara said angrily.

Alphys rolled her eyes. "You didn't seem to care this much about him when you were alive."

Chara's eyes widened. "What did you just say to me?"

 _Chara._

Alphys suddenly realized how mean that was. "O-oh, God, Chara. I-I'm so-" she began, before Chara cut her off.

"You don't know SHIT about me."

 _Chara, stop._

"You don't know anything about what happened all those years ago," Chara continued. "You don't know the relationship I had with him. You don't know the BOND we shared. You don't even know how we died!"

 _Enough._

"You killed yourself and got him killed!" Alphys retorted. Chara stepped back, clearly upset. "Aw, jeez, there I go again," Alphys berated herself.

"How do you know about that?" Chara asked.

"It's not-"

"How the fuck do you know about that?"

Alphys groaned again. "I found tapes, okay! Tapes that showed me a really messed up side of you! You blame me for Asriel's current state, but… But it's your fault he's like this!" Alphys looked over at Flowey for a moment before returning her attention to Chara. She knew that she shouldn't be deflecting blame, but she didn't know what else to say. "If the king saw those tapes…"

"Where are these tapes?"

"Nowhere-"

Chara glanced at the bathroom door. "You're hiding them in there, aren't you?" he accused.

"Chara-"

"What else goes on behind that door?" he asked, hostility having taken total control of his tone. He began to march towards the bathroom door.

 _Chara._

"Chara, it's not important," Alphys said desperately. She walked towards him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Now I think we need to focus on the conflict at hand and-"

Chara turned around, drew his knife, and pressed it against Alphys' neck. "Don't fucking touch me." Alphys stepped back, a mark being left where he'd been holding the knife.

 _Chara, PUT THAT DOWN._

"W-what are you going to do with that?" Alphys asked, for the first time ever feeling that her life was in danger with the human.

"Shut up. And don't make assumptions about my life."

It was at this point that the argument caught Undyne's attention. She saw the human threatening Alphys with a deadly weapon. For a second, she couldn't process it. Flowey just stared, bewildered. Undyne stepped forward and yelled. "Frisk! The hell's going on?!" The human turned to face Undyne; it was a face she recognized. It was the face from her nightmare.

Concerned for the well-being of both Alphys and the human, Undyne summoned a spear. "Hey, kid, listen, whatever's going on… Let's just calm down and talk about this, okay?" she tried to reason. The human simply scowled and pocketed the knife. They walked over to the desk and grabbed Flowey, before walking towards the exit.

"Get your hands off of me, you psycho!" Flowey yelled.

Chara yelled over his shoulder. "I'm going for a walk. Don't bother looking for me, I'll come back when I come back." He stopped at the door. "If you send any royal guards after me, you'll be sending them to their deaths." He stepped out, leaving Undyne and a heavily shaken Alphys alone.

Undyne turned to Alphys and demanded answers. "What the hell just happened?!" she asked, panicked at the sudden mood whiplash.

Alphys stared at the exit for a moment. "I messed up," she admitted. _I was bound to ruin everything eventually,_ she thought glumly. _It's what I'm best at._


	11. Chapter 11: It Hits the Fan, Part 2

**A/N: I am seriously unhappy with the state of this story right now, which is why I haven't updated in several months. I think the last, like, three chapters were extremely poorly written and weren't paced very well and I was dragging plot points on way too long and I basically wrote myself into a corner.**

 **So here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna re-work things. At the end of this little arc, I'm gonna shift focus and move things in a new direction. I'm sorry if people don't like some of the cop-outs I made in resolving the conflicts from the last chapter, but I needed to move on to something else. I'll revisit some of these themes at some point down the road but it's time to move on to more interesting storylines.**

 _Chara, please head back,_ Frisk pleaded. She couldn't take control back from him. For the first time, his emotions were too much. He overpowered her determination… simply through sheer anger. Frisk thought that was total bullshit. It was unfair. It was cheating. It was… scary. It was honestly, legitimately scary.

They'd gotten to Waterfall by this point. Chara was sitting on a bench they'd found on an earlier adventure. Just underneath them was an abandoned quiche, and in Chara's arms was Flowey, who was thoroughly annoyed at the situation.

"What's your problem?" Flowey asked Chara, glaring up at him—technically her, as the ghost was still confined to Frisk's female body for the time being. Chara didn't even look that angry anymore. He just looked sad.

"I'm sorry," he responded, voice breaking.

Flowey rolled his eyes. "You better be. You've made a real mess." He smirked. "I bet Alphys and Undyne hate you now. How far you've fallen in such a short amount of time, human."

Chara shook his head. "Not that. I'm talking about before."

Flowey blinked. "Before?"

"When we crossed the barrier together," Chara responded. "Remember? And those humans..."

"Yes, those humans taught me the true meaning of this world," Flowey said grimly. "In this world, it's kill or be killed." He was interrupted from his cynical worldview by a stray thought. "By the way, we were very much on the 'be killed' side of that spectrum," the flower clarified. "How are you here? What happened to you, Chara?" he asked.

"In case you haven't noticed, Az, there's something different about me now," Chara responded. He glanced down at Frisk's chest. "Well, two somethings."

 _Pervert._

Chara ignored Frisk. "This isn't my body, I'm hijacking someone else's body right now." He glared at nothing in particular. "Hey, Frisk, your body sucks, I want my old one back."

 _Gee, thanks._

"Oh, don't act all offended," Chara retorted. "There is nothing practical about the female form. Nothing."

Frisk mentally scoffed. _You're lucky I'm forced to share this body with you. This is the most awkward developmental period of a woman's life and I have no privacy because of you._

"Well, don't worry about it, because there ain't much to look at."

 _I'm 14!_

"Well, so am I, but I can also grow a mustache." Chara corrected himself. " _Could_ also grow a mustache. Before I died. I guess you better pray you're a late bloomer."

Flowey blinked. "Who are you talking to?"

"I share a consciousness with the human I'm sharing this body with," Chara responded flatly. "We can hear each other's thoughts. It's the worst."

"But HOW," Flowey questioned, still not getting it, "did that HAPPEN?"

Chara sighed. "I don't know. You think I know? What was left of my soul just latched onto Frisk when she fell," he said. "Why did it latch onto her specifically, and not any of the other humans? Who knows. Maybe it has to do with Determination. Maybe it's because the other ones were already pre-determined to die down here." Chara crossed Frisk's arms. "Maybe I'm actually in hell, and this is my punishment."

 _Hey!_

"So… How come you haven't loaded, yet?" Flowey asked.

Chara blinked. "Frisk?"

 _I want to avoid messing with timelines for right now. We're going to figure out how much damage control we have to do once we get back to the lab and decide if we want to load from there._

"Alright," Chara said. He glanced at Flowey, who looked confused. "She said something about messing with timelines or something. She wants to stop loading, saving, or resetting altogether."

 _Which is a really hard thing to decide when you keep messing things up._

Chara scowled. "She disrespected my little bro. I had to do SOMETHING."

 _No, you didn't. Can I have my body back now?_

"Nah, this is pretty relaxing, I'm gonna wait until I'm not pissed off."

 _You know that once you're calm enough I could probably just overpower you and take control myself._

"Yeah, you could," Chara said. "But you won't," he added.

 _What makes you so sure?_

"I think you understand that everyone needs a bit of time to just forget about everything that's going on and relax for a few hours," Chara replied. "I don't think you'd take that away from me."

 _Well, you're right, but…_

Flowey interrupted their conversation. "Why did you bring ME?" he asked. "Why do I need to be here?"

"I need somebody to talk to," Chara replied. "I mean, you know, besides Ms. Nagsalot here." He looked down at Flowey, sadly. "I miss my brother."

Flowey looked away. "I'm not who I used to be, Chara. I'm not your brother." He then thought about something Chara said a few moments ago. "Also, no, Chara, you could not grow a mustache, you grew three hairs below your nose and refused to shave them."

 _Hah!_

"Oh, shut up," Chara said, now embarrassed.

* * *

Undyne was sitting next to Alphys, who was curled up in a ball on the couch, trying not to think about all of the things that just went wrong, and that could still go wrong. Of course, she was still thinking about them. Trying never hurt, though. "It's not your fault, Al," Undyne tried to comfort her friend.

Alphys sniffed. "Yes, it is. I said something that made Char- Frisk really mad. And now she's out there all alone, and she hates me, and what if she gets hurt or kidnapped or killed?" Panic was setting in once again. "I should have just kept my mouth shut, but instead I-"

"Stop," Undyne said sternly. She grabbed Alphys' chin and turned her head, forcing her to make eye contact. "A few things. First of all, she doesn't hate you. She's just really, really, really, really…" Undyne took a deep breath. "Really, really, really pissed off. Second of all, she's a weenie—at least, I thought so," Undyne said, thinking back to the knife the human wielded. "But she's a tough weenie. And it's not like she hasn't gone walking through the underground alone before. She'll be fine. Nobody's gonna hurt her. Third of all, she's not alone. She's got Flowey."

Alphys groaned. "That's the part I'm worried about, Undyne," she whined.

Undyne waved off Alphys' concerns. "You know, I'm surprised YOU aren't more pissed off. She could have really hurt you with that knife," she said, glancing at the mark that was left on Alphys' throat. It wouldn't scar, and thankfully it stopped bleeding rather quickly, but... "...what made her flip out like that?"

"It was… something I said," Alphys repeated, intentionally leaving the actual cause vague.

Undyne wasn't buying it. "Alphys. I'm not stupid. I know sometimes you might think I am-"

"I-I don't think you're stupid!" Alphys immediately denied. "W-why on earth would-?!"

Undyne cut her off. "Frisk is one of the nicest people I've met. Some monsters aren't as kind as her," she said. "Myself included. So I find it a little hard to believe that she'd just SNAP like that. Something else is going on. What-?"

"She has bipolar disorder, Undyne!" Alphys lied, cutting her friend off. _I should not have said that._ "It's… she was medicated for it on the surface, and she just ran out a few days ago." Lying was like second nature to Alphys. "That's why she was like that. So she needs to be medicated, somehow. I'm going to figure something out in the morning."

Undyne just stared and tilted her head. "She's… Sick?" she asked, confused.

"I-in a way, yes." _Stop lying,_ Alphys berated herself. At the moment, she was just being offensive. "So we need to be supportive. And… stuff."

Undyne frowned. "But that doesn't excuse-!"

"Of course it doesn't. I will talk to her about how we're going to proceed. Until then… it's late, Undyne. Get some sleep. I'm going to look at the cameras and see if I can find Frisk. Okay?"

"O...kay…" Undyne sighed. "I guess. You're way more qualified than I am to deal with this. So… I guess I'll head home, then." Undyne started to walk towards the exit as Alphys pulled out her phone.

Alphys waved goodbye as Undyne did the same. When the fish monster was out of the lab, Alphys let out a very loud scream.

"WHY CAN'T THESE THINGS EVER BE EASY?!" she asked nobody in particular. She started dialing a number. "Come on, Frisk, pick up."

* * *

Chara, completely relaxed now, dozed off on the bench, after playing with Frisk's phone until its battery died. He wished they had iPhones back when he was still alive, that Flappy Bird game was hella addictive.

Truthfully, at this point, Frisk could have taken control back very easily, but she decided not to. She decided it would be best to wait until Chara felt like heading back; like he said earlier, he needed to relax for a few hours, and who was she to deny him that right?

She also wondered if she could talk using her body without disturbing Chara's rest. It would simply be a matter of only taking control of certain muscles...

Flowey was still nearby, despite having been released from his coffee mug prison. He was using his roots to carve markings in the wall; like his adoptive brother, he seemed to enjoy art, although Flowey's markings were a little more primitive due to the lack of dexterity afforded by his roots. It appeared to be some sort of rotund demon of death and destruction, killing and destroying everyone and everything using its powerful death rays, all the while sporting a satisfied, evil grin on its face.

Or perhaps it was simply a happy sun shining its rays on the happy monsters of the underground, now living happily on the surface. Honestly, who could tell at this point? Art is subjective, fuck you.

"Psst! Yo!" Flowey looked up from his carving, then around in the cavern. Chara was still asleep. Confused, he tilted his head, and looked around for the source of the noise. "Flowey!" the voice whispered. Flowey glanced again at the snoozing child. The noise was definitely coming from them. Suddenly, although they still appeared asleep, their lips moved. "We need to talk."

Flowey recoiled. "Chara?"

"What? No, Flowey, the other one! Frisk!"

"Can you not do that?" Flowey requested, slightly disgusted. "It's unnerving. It looks like you're sleep-talking, or… something," he said.

"Well, too bad," Frisk replied. "This is the only way I can talk without taking full control of the body."

"Isn't it your body?"

"Yeah, but Chara needs his beauty sleep," the child responded. "He gets cranky otherwise. Plus, his beauty sleep is my beauty sleep." Flowey rolled his eyes as the human continued. "So like, he rests the body, and I just, like, borrow the mouth."

"What do you want?" Flowey asked, glaring.

"How come you haven't killed me yet?"

"Hello, genius," Flowey immediately snapped. "Chara's in there! Believe me, I would LOVE to strangle you right now. I'd be happy to see the life leave your eyes as you struggle to take your last breath. I'd probably leave you hanging and make it look like a suicide." Flowey smirked, adopting a darker tone. "Your friends'd probably believe it, too. I'm sure that's how they all already think you're gonna go. Alphys. Undyne. That smiling trash bag, hell, even Papyrus would see it coming. That is, supposing his useless brother ever explains the concept of death to him. The point is that they're all convinced you're going to off yourself, eventually." He then frowned and glared at the human. "But Chara's in there. And hurting you would hurt him. So I won't do it."

"And here I thought you were incapable of caring about people."

"I can pretend all I want."

Frisk continued questioning. "So, what's the REAL reason you came to Alphys' lab?"

"You wanna know the real reason?" Flowey retorted. "Undyne dragged me along. I don't want to be anywhere near that pathetic excuse for a scientist." Flowey sunk a little. "She is, after all, the reason I'm like this."

"So I gathered. God, you're so gloomy, you know that?" Flowey glared. "Seriously, like, I _hate_ myself and all, but at least I know how to have fun. If we ever break that barrier, I'm taking you to the beach and teaching you how to not be such a Debbie-freaking-downer."

"The beach."

"Yeah, I bet Alphys and Undyne would LOVE it in Delmarva. Maybe we could get a vacation home..."

Flowey rolled his eyes. "You'd be a 'Debbie Downer' too if your entire existence lost all meaning."

"Aw, you think my existence has meaning?"

"Besides which," Flowey continued, growing impatient with the human's sarcastic attitude, "if you break the barrier, I'm not joining you up there."

Silence.

"Alright, Debbie."

"Stop it!"

"Stop what, Debbie?"

"Calling me 'Debbie!' My name's not Debbie, it's As- agh, dammit, Flowey, Flowey the Flower!" Flowey raised his voice. "Also, news flash, idiot, Alphys and Undyne want nothing to do with you now! Chara ruined that, remember?"

"Yeah, maybe you're right," Frisk responded, chuckling. "Debbie."

Chara slowly opened one eye. "Frisk, knock it off. I'm trying to sleep," he yawned.

"Thank you!" Flowey exclaimed, exasperated.

"You know as well as I do that it's not Asriel's fault that he's such a Debbie Downer," Chara groggily continued. Flowey covered his face with a vine in frustration.

 _Heh. Sorry, Sleeping Beauty. You ready to head back?_ Frisk asked.

Chara yawned once more. "I guess," he said, sitting up. "You wanna take over?"

"Gladly," Frisk responded, once again taking control of her own body. "Come on, Debbie, we gotta get back."

"Yeah, no," Flowey responded, glaring. "I'd rather be buried alive than spend one more moment in Alphys' company."

Frisk glanced around the cavern. "We HAVE been buried alive." Flowey groaned. "Heh. Alright. Keep being a recluse." Frisk stretched her arms a bit before standing up. "I imagine we'll see each other again soon. Don't be a stranger," Frisk remarked.

Flowey was gone. Chara internally sighed.

 _Hey, we'll figure something out,_ Frisk assured him.

 _I'm sorry I screwed us over,_ Chara said sadly.

 _It's… Whatever. Nobody got hurt, and that's what matters. We'll find some way to explain it to them._

Frisk walked through Waterfall, alone, with each step dreading the conversation she'll likely have with the others once she was at the lab. Alphys will be easy to explain to, definitely, but what would Undyne think? She considered turning back and just… Finding a new home in the Underground, she supposed. It might be the easiest thing. Couchsurfing was starting to sound more and more like a viable living plan. But that was cowardly. And Frisk didn't do cowardly.

Not anymore.

Perhaps, if Undyne and Alphys truly hated her, she'd go back and give her soul to Asgore after all… but then he'd kill a shitload of humans. And that was a little less than desirable. Alphys and Undyne would be decidedly unable to enjoy the beaches of Delmarva if bodies were strewn about.

Frisk was so deep in thought that she nearly failed to notice that this hallway was unusually long. Nearly. Upon realizing she'd been walking down the hall for an extraordinarily long time, Frisk blinked and stopped.

 _Why are we stopping?_ Chara asked. Frisk looked around for a bit, trying to figure out just where the hell she was. Had she taken the wrong path? No, impossible. She always took this route home. So then, where…?

It was then that Frisk noticed the tall, grey door on the wall to her left. She raised an eyebrow and stared. She hadn't seen this door before. Frisk studied the door's features. At a glance, she saw that the door itself was featureless, without a single imperfection in its wooden material, the knob a perfectly polished orb. The frame, however, was adorned with some of the same symbols she and the others found on Asgore's note, back in New Home. She couldn't read it.

"How did I miss this…?" she asked herself. Cautiously, she stepped forward, slowly raising her hand towards the doorknob, intending to enter whatever room lie up ahead. Eventually, her palm came to rest on the polished metal. She slowly began to turn the knob…

...only to find that the door was locked. "Well, I guess that's the end of that adventure," she shrugged, turning to continue walking back to Hotland.

 _Lame,_ Chara complained.

 _Right? I was so stoked on doing a thing._

 _...Frisk?_

 _Yeah?_

 _Speaking of mystery doors…_

 _You want to figure out what's behind the bathroom door._

 _Yeah._

Frisk sighed. _Alright._

 _Wait, seriously? No fight?_

 _No fight. You wanna do it, we're gonna do it. We're gonna sneak in tonight._

 _Is that really a good idea? They're already pissed off at us._

 _All the more incentive to not get caught._

Frisk arrived at the lab. Glancing under the crack between the automatic door and the floor, she saw that the lights were off. _Alright. She's asleep._ Not wanting to make any noise, she entered the manual override code Alphys had given to her on a nearby keypad (0913, Alphys' birthday) and slid the door open slowly. Every light was off, but she knew her way around the room.

"Ow! Dammit!" she yelled as she stubbed her toe on Alphys' desk. She heard something fall to the floor with a loud crash; she cringed, and guessed by the splash that followed that she just smashed one of Alphys' bowls, noodles still inside. "Uh. I'll clean that up later." She tiptoed further into the room, feeling along the wall for the bathroom door. She smirked. "Bingo."

Just then, every light in the lab came to life. _Shit._

"Going somewhere?" Alphys asked, legs crossed as she sat atop a nearby table. She hopped off the table and approached Frisk.

"Were you waiting all night?" Frisk asked. She was caught by surprise, however, when Alphys gripped her in a tight hug.

"I-I couldn't sleep knowing you were still out there," Alphys said softly. Tears streamed down her face. "Frisk, don't you EVER do that again. I mean it. Do you have any idea how worried I was? I-I thought-!"

"Honestly, I thought you'd hate me by now," Frisk said, glancing at the mark on Alphys' neck.

"Hate you?! Why would I- L-look…" Alphys released the hug and sighed. "Can I talk to Chara? Please?"

Frisk blinked. When she reopened her eyes, Chara was there. "Alphys, I'm-"

"No, Chara, I'M sorry," Alphys interrupted. "What I said was totally uncalled for. And mean. I shouldn't have assumed anything about you, I shouldn't have insulted Asriel, I shouldn't have-"

"YOU'RE the one who's sorry?" Chara scoffed. "Christ, Alphys. Listen to me, okay? I overreacted. I was a brat. I'M the one who should be sorry."

"Well, too bad. It's me."

"I literally threatened your life."

Alphys looked Chara in the eyes, seemingly gazing at his soul with hers. She'd been told by Frisk that Chara lacked a complete soul, but she didn't think that was true. "I don't think you'd have done it." She hugged him again. "You scared me. And we're going to need to work this out. But I don't hate Frisk, and I don't hate you. Things just… got a little heated back there. The important thing is we're all calm now."

Chara slowly grabbed the knife, which was stowed away in Frisk's pocket. How she never accidentally sat on it and bled to death from some kind of butt artery rupture was beyond him, but nonetheless, he pulled it out. Alphys saw, and followed with her eyes, but didn't move otherwise. Finally, Chara held the knife an arm's length away and dropped it on the floor. It landed with a loud clang, and Chara sighed in relief. "Fuck that thing," he muttered. "Just causes problems."

The two (three?) stood there for some time, embracing. Finally, Alphys looked up at the bathroom door and sighed. "You want to know what's behind that door, don't you?" Chara nodded. "Let me grab a flashlight," she said as she walked over to the desk, and began digging in the drawers for a flashlight.

"Alphys?"

"I've been holding onto this secret for too long. Besides… don't you want to see the tapes?"

Chara raised an eyebrow. "So they are in there?"

"That and so… so much more. Catch." Alphys tossed a flashlight at Chara, and he caught it as directed. She then retrieved her own from the drawer. "The power goes out down there a lot. Faulty wiring. Hasn't been maintained in years."

"'Down there?' Where are we going?"

Alphys opened the bathroom door, revealing that the room on the other side was not, in fact, a bathroom, but rather an elevator. She looked at Chara. "Hell," she replied. "C-come on. Let's get this over with."

Taking control once again, Frisk stepped into the elevator, and the doors slowly shut. "Hey, Alphys? What are the odds we can get Chara his own body?"

Alphys sighed. "One issue at a time, Frisk. I promise I'll try to figure something out, but without the original body, it's going to be hard to do anything." Alphys didn't even mention the fact that she suspected Frisk was either already in or about to enter the teenage stage of life, and having two hormonal teenage humans with opposite sets of chromosomes running around the lab was not something she wanted any time soon.

Because if hormonal teenage humans even thought about doing half the stuff Alphys thought about doing but never could when she was a hormonal teenager, then a third human might show up, and she didn't think she could handle that.

"...you know, it feels like this day started months ago," Frisk said.

Alphys glanced at her watch as the elevator began to descend. "3:36. AM. It's a new day."

"Thank god," the human muttered.

Yesterday was just the worst.


End file.
